Allison Backhouse now has her own blog and her focus today is on AdvancED's  accreditation investigation of the Wake County school system.

Backhouse criticizes the "ridiculous complaint" by the Rev. William Barber of the state NAACP that led to the review. Noting the recent positive AdvancED report, she writes that the organization's concerns were addressed "due to the hard work of the previous Board and Supt. Tata."

"But, what has really changed – besides the political majority on the School Board?" Backhouse writes. "Are our high schools and their students better in some way? Even the Wake Education Partnership came to the conclusion that accreditation is just a public perception issue. We think it’s important only because we’ve been told it is."

Wake County school board member Debra Goldman says she's taking on the role of board "watchdog."

During last week's board meeting, Goldman, a Republican, repeatedly raised concerns about the way she felt the new Democratic board majority was operating. She accused the board of committing several policy violations and not passing the "smell test" on email discussions.

"You’ve referred to me as the watchdog and I will pick up that mantle and go forward with it," Goldman said during the meeting.

The new Democratic majority on the Wake County school board want to work on student assignment on Day 2 instead of Day 1 of their tenure.

As noted in today's article, Democratic school board member and potential new chairman Kevin Hill has requested that a Dec. 7 work session be held on the student assignment plan. The new majority will be sworn in on Dec. 6.

“The assignment plan is very time sensitive,” Hill said. “We’ll be into the December holidays and time is short. I requested that we get our sleeves rolled up and get to work.”

The Wake County Democratic Party is going after school board chairman Ron Margiotta's recent campaign mailer, saying it doesn't reflect the incumbent's "real record."

In a press release Tuesday, Wake Democratic Party Chairman Mack Paul said Margiotta's "real record of achievement is far different." Paul accused Margiotta of putting high school accreditation and federal funding at risk, insulting parents, violating the Open Meetings Law and making Wake a "national punch line" on the Colbert Report.
 
"Ron Margiotta left off some key parts of his record, including the poor leadership that threatened accreditation for our high schools," Paul said in the press release. "He also left off his 'success' at putting our federal funding at risk in his single minded pursuit of creating high poverty schools.

Any success we have had has been as a result of hard working teachers and our students. Many of the results that he trumpets came as a result of policies and work that happened prior to him taking a leadership role on the Board."

The state NAACP is urging the Wake County school board to reject the new redistricting maps, claiming "racial purposes" were present in the drawing of the boundary lines.

In a press release today, the Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP, rails against how "the re-segregationists present you with a set of maps" which "obliviously are designed to tighten their grip on our children's learning environments."

In case people didn't get the hint about the tone of the press release, Barber notes that today is the 57th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Ed decision.

The Wake County school board agreed Tuesday to form a new ad-hoc committee to develop a tool for evaluating the performance of Superintendent Tony Tata.

As part of Tata's contract, his performance needs to be reviewed annually by the school board. A committee chaired by Carolyn Morrison and including Deborah Prickett and Keith Sutton will be charged with developing that evaluation tool.

School board chairman Ron Margiotta will serve as an ex-officio member of the committee. That's being done in response to concerns from board attorney Ann Majestic that a three-member committee could run afoul of the Open Meetings Law when two members discuss issues.

It's been expensive both in terms of monetary cost and staff time responding to the various NAACP-related complaints filed against the Wake County school system for ending the diversity policy.

Based on a handout shared at Tuesday's board work session, school administrators estimated that they've spent 807.7 hours in staff time dealing with the Open Meetings lawsuit, the AdvancED investigation and the federal civil rights investigation.

The majority of the time, 592.2 hours, was spent responding to the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights investigation.

Nearly a week after the court ruling came down, the Wake County school system issued a press release today on the Open Meetings decision.

Not surprisingly, today's press release focuses on the state Court of Appeals' decision not to reinstate the suit. The press release kind of acknowledges that the appellate panel found the board had violated the Open Meetings Law at the March 23, 2010 meeting.

"The unanimous decision of the Court of Appeals ruled that open meeting laws were not strictly followed at the March 23, 2010, meeting, but noted the board had made and was continuing to make reasonable efforts to comply with the NC open meetings law," according to the press release.

Today's N.C. Court of Appeals ruling on the Open Meetings lawsuit against the Wake County school system has something for both sides.

Supporters of the school board majority will focus on the fact that the three-judge panel unanimously agreed to not reinstate the lawsuit, which had been tossed out by Superior Court Judge Bill Pittman.

But critics of the board majority will likely focus on how the panel agreed that the school board had violated the Open Meetings Law during the March 23, 2010 meeting.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST, WITH REACTION FROM THE UNC CENTER FOR CIVIL RIGHTS AND THE JOHN LOCKE FOUNDATION

Could the Wake County school board still be slapped with a preliminary injunction accusing it of violating the state's Open Meetings Law?

As noted in today's article, the N.C. Court of Appeals will hear Thursday the appeal of the lawsuit that accused the school board of violating the Open Meetings Law back in March. Wake County Superior Court Judge Bill Pittman dismissed the suit in May.

At issue is how Pittman found that the school board had acted unreasonably during the March 23 board meeting. But he dismissed the lawsuit after determining Wake had changed its practices and was now acting reasonably to accommodate crowds.