Wake County school officials are expressing surprise that the district was one of 12 nationally targeted for a federal Title IX complaint on Wednesday.

As noted in today's article by Tim Stevens, the National Women’s Law Center accuses the 12 school systems of failing to provide high school girls with equal opportunities as boys to play interscholastic sports. A big point of the complaint is that, citing 2006 data, there is a 11.8 percentage point difference between the percentage of Wake girls enrolled and the percentage of athletes who are girls.

Bobby Guthrie, Wake's senior administrator of athletics, said no one from the National Women’s Law Center had contacted him. He praised Wake's commitment to girls’ sports, citing the 24 N.C. High School Athletic Association 4-A state championships won by Wake schools’ girls’ teams the last five years.

The National Women’s Law Center filed federal discrimination complaints today accusing 12 school systems, including Wake County, of failing to provide high school girls with equal opportunities as boys to play sports.

The complaints say the 12 school districts are in violation of Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education programs. The group says that the districts have high schools with double-digit gaps between the percentage of students who are girls and the percentage of athletes who are girls.

"By not providing equal opportunities for its female high school students, the Wake County Public School System is depriving many girls of the significant benefits associated with playing sports," according to the complaint filed against Wake. "Sports participation has dramatic positive effects on young women’s health, academic success, employment prospects, and self-esteem."

Is Wake County school board member Kevin Hill's proposed consensus-building approach to student assignment "gobbledygook" or an important step to coming up with a new plan?

As noted in today's article, board members couldn't agree Tuesday on whether to follow Hill's approach so they're going to address it again at next Tuesday's work session. There's still a wide split on the matter with board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman not coming down on either side of the proposal to indicate what might be the outcome.

During the talk, GOP school board members called Hill's proposal a stall tactic. After the work session, board member Chris Malone called it "gobbledygook."

Some clarity about the Wake County student assignment process could emerge from Tuesday's school board work session.

The agenda for Tuesday's work session includes a discussion on student assignment. School board chairman Ron Margiotta said he's hoping the discussion about the new directive that was passed last week will answer the questions that board members have about how to proceed.

In addition to talking about the directive, Margiotta said they'll also discuss the equity presentation that was made at this week's student assignment committee meeting.

School board attorney Ann Majestic is standing by her initial opinion that last week's directive scrapping the community zones doesn't require a second vote by the Wake County school board.

At issue is whether the new directive changes school board policy, which would result in two votes. Majestic had told the board that the March directive would change policy so a second vote was scheduled.

School board chairman Ron Margiotta asked Majestic for her opinion of the new directive's impact on Policy 6200, a.k.a. the student assignment policy. In a letter Tuesday, Majestic wrote that she doesn't feel it changes the policy.

Today marks the last day of the Beverley Clark era on the school board.

Clark said the one thing she'll consider to be her biggest legacy will be her advocacy for equity for older schools. As noted in today's article, Clark was a strong proponent of making sure that older schools got renovations to bring them closer to par with new schools.

"There are still schools that are quite old that need to be addressed," Clark said. "But we're closing the gap."

It looks like Wake is changing the way it handles JROTC programs.

As noted in today's North Raleigh News article, Millbrook High plans to start an Army JROTC program in spring 2010 and Garner High has expressed interest in getting one. Other high schools may have to go through extra hurdles in the future.

During an update on JROTC in the district last month, administrators told school board members they'll begin looking at getting programs on a system level than on a school by school basis.

It looks like magnet schools won't lose much if anything by the time a new equity and equality policy is developed by the school board.

The board is trying to develop a policy that would help provide "equal access to programs and services and equitable distribution of resources." But during Tuesday's work session discussion, board members stressed that they wanted to protect magnet schools in the new policy.

"if we don't have some differences, we undermine why you'd leave Apex to go to Enloe," said school board member Beverley Clark.

Your chances of getting an Advanced Placement class or foreign language in a high school vary widely across the district.

The disparities were highlighted in data shared at this month's student achievement committee meeting of the school board. The differences were noticeable enough that board members are talking about the need to make some changes.

For instance, staff presented data showing that Enloe High leads the way with 28 AP courses. But none of the four small schools that make up East Wake High had more than five AP courses with one school having none.

As promised, here's a spreadsheet showing which courses are available this school year at each Wake high school.

You'll soon notice that some schools have a lot more courses than others. For instance, the spreadsheet caused school board member Lori Millberg to ask why East Wake High had so few advanced courses compared to Enloe High.

(I should throw in this disclaimer from the district that it's a draft document that could be revised.)