More to come, but here's a quick recap of today's Wake County school board policy committee meeting.

The committee didn't act on staff's recommendation to recommend changes in the capping policy, principally including wording authorizing the superintendent to place partial caps at schools. Board members said they will approve it at some point but want to flesh out the capping issue more in the assignment plan discussion before approving policy changes.

Board member Susan Evans floated the idea of limiting how long board members can debate issues, citing how long meetings have gotten. Other board members weren't willing to go that far and that idea wasn't incorporated into the proposed revisions of the rules of order policy that will go to the full board.

The committee also agreed to send to the full board the revised duties of board officers policy.

The Wake County school board's policy committee will tackle today enrollment capping and the way the board operates.

The capping policy has been meant to apply to schools for the foliating school year. Since the caps proposed in the draft 2013-14 assignment plan would affect schools for this school year, some revisions might be needed.

The committee will also discuss the policy on the rules of order that govern board meetings.

The committee will also discuss the policy on the duties of officers, namely the board chair and vice chair. The discussion comes a week before the board's annual organization meeting when officers will be selected for the next year.

UPDATE

Click here to view the proposed revision to the capping policy. It would incorporate wording on the use of partial and full caps.

Click here to view the proposed revision on the duties of board officers. It would formalize into the policy the practice that's been followed the past year that allows the board chair to vote  on all issues. The board chair has been voting on everything, and not just to break ties, since the General Assembly made it possible last year.

Click here to view the proposed revision on the rules of order. It drops the wording that the board chair can only vote to break ties. It also formalizes the practice that's been taking place of board members making comments at the start of the meeting.

This month's Wake County school board discussion on the draft 2013-14 student assignment plan shows both the advantages and disadvantages of the district's multi-track year-round calendar.

On one hand, the multi-track calendar is helping Brier Creek Elementary School in northwest Raleigh keep up with growth as the only school in the area. On the other hand, the multi-track calendar was negatively impacting Eastern Wake schools, leading to staff recommending that three schools switch to a single-track calendar for next year.

During the Nov. 13 board work session, board member Deborah Prickett said that at her last board advisory council meeting some parents had asked about switching Brier Creek to a traditional calendar or single-track year-round school.

Switching from the choice plan back to a base school plan for Wake County schools doesn't mean it's going to be all rosy for real-estate agents.

As noted in today's article, real-estate agents were among the most vocal critics of the choice plan because of the challenges of marketing homes to people when there was no base. Now they may find that the capping proposal could make it hard to sell homes in certain part of the county.

"Everybody seems to be waiting to buy to find out what’s going to happen,” said Heather Rand, a Raleigh real-estate agent. “They don’t have any confidence in where they’re going to buy.”

Is expanding the use of enrollment caps the best way to deal with overcrowding in Wake County schools for the 2013-14 school year?

As noted in today's article, there was a lot of discussion Tuesday about staff's recommendation to put full caps on 12 schools for the rest of the school year and partial caps on 22 schools.

Staff pitched the caps as being an alternative to using reassignment to deal with overcrowding.

Somewhat unexpectedly, the Wake County school system posted the full draft 2013-14 student assignment plan online in advance of Tuesday's school board presentation.

As noted in today's article, this document shows that the plan recommends reassigning 1,479 students, most of whom would go to three "new" schools: Richland Creek Elementary, Rolesville Middle and Rolesville High.

For the second year in a row, staff is recommending delaying the opening of  Abbotts Creek Elementary. The document doesn't say why, but some families have balked at the thought of going to a modular school whose funding isn't in place for the permanent building.

This week marks what could be a potentially major week in the history of Wake County student assignment.

As noted in today's article, the school board's policy committee will meet Tuesday to begin discussion of rewriting the student assignment policy to reintroduce diversity as one of the components. On Saturday, the school board will go over the 2013-14 draft student assignment plan that could potentially be rewritten to reflect the diversity changes.

One of the questions the school board will face is how to word the diversity component in the assignment policy. Should it be a general statement, as proposed by staff, or a more explicit document that would have a variety of income and achievement targets?

The draft summary of Wake County's new student assignment plan seems to promise a lot of things to different people.

As noted in today's article, the plan promotes proximity by noting that "base assignments will be made at one of their proximate schools to the extent possible." It also says that "residential areas and subdivisions proximate to schools and representative of the students already attending the schools" were used.

For those concerned about diversity, administrators say "in the establishment of the base school attendance area, student performance data was used when an overcrowded or under enrolled school was adjusted."

Walnut Creek Elementary School is still going to be crowded even with the enrollment cap approved for the rest of the school year.

As noted in today's article, the Wake County school board unanimously adopted a cap to send new students to Creech Road Elementary. The cap will stay in place for the rest of the school year unless Walnut Creek's enrollment, now at 929 students, drops below 862 students.

"Walnut Creek is hemorrhaging and we needed to stop the bleeding," said school board member Keith Sutton, who had requested the cap. "We did that with the cap."

More to come later but the Wake County school board tabled the adoption of the math placement policy and approved the cap on Walnut Creek Elementary School.

Republican board member Deborah Prickett joined the four Democrats in voting the table the vote on the math policy on a 5-3 vote. Staff said they were uncertain how the new core curriculum standards would impact the math policy.

The vote on the cap was unanimous. New students who move into Walnut Creek's base will be sent to Creech Road Elementary until the school's enrollment drops below 862 students. It's now at 929 students.

UPDATE

During the discussion, Ruth Steidinger, senior director for middle school programs, said the R&P for the math policy would have to be revised because of the new core curriculum standards. One question was whether EVAAS would even still be used under the common core.

Democratic board member Keith Sutton said it would be irresponsible to adopt the policy when the R&P will have to be revised. After the meeting, Prickett said she voted to table the policy because of the concerns about how it would be impacted by the common core.

Assuming the questions are answered, it will be up to the new Democratic majority to decide whether to proceed with the policy. It's worth noting that the crowd, which included the new members and their supporters, applauded when the motion to table the policy passed.