The new CTE high school and plans to relocate the Wake Young Men's Leadership Academy to the former Thompson School building may finally being forward despite the recent bickering between the Wake County school board and county commissioners.

As noted in today's article, the commissioners approved Monday this memorandum of understanding to lease the former Coca-Cola bottling facility in South Raleigh and renovate it for opening for the 2014-15 school year as the CTE school.

Now the school board will hold a public hearing today on the CTE high school and vote on a resolution requesting commissioners go ahead with the deal.

UPDATE

Amid concerns raised by some board members, a vote will be held Oct. 30 on whether the school should be open to sophomores, juniors and seniors or just juniors and seniors.

One issue that the Wake County school board will have to decide for the 2013-14 student assignment plan is what to do with the feeder patterns that were part of the choice plan.

Staff recommended, as part of the now discarded draft base maps, honoring the choice plan feeders for middle school and high school. The board's agreement last week to work with the 11-12 base maps means reconciling cases where the feeders are different from the choice plan.

The Democratic board members have been openly skeptical of the choice plan's premise that parents could be guaranteed a K-12 feeder pattern. But at last week's work session, board member Susan Evans offered what she called a "good compromise."

Wake County school board chairman Kevin Hill is continuing his efforts to justify the board majority's firing of Superintendent Tony Tata.

As noted in today's article, Hill met Friday with N&O editors and reporters to list out issues such as concerns about Tata's relationship with board members and staff and his handling of taxpayer dollars. Some of it's similar to what he said at Tuesday's board meeting but he went into more detail.

Hill also went into how he wants to handle the superintendent's search and the timing of the next school bond issue.

UPDATE

Click here to view the letter to the editor from Kevin Hill that will appear in Tuesday's paper in response to Tata's point of view column.

After a week of tearing into each other, Wake County school board members finally found something they could agree on Thursday night.

As noted in today's article, Republican and Democratic board members unanimously agreed to scrap the 2013-14 draft assignment maps in favor of going to the 2011-12 base maps. The fact they were agreeing drew several mentions and jokes at the board table.

The change occurred when board member Jim Martin interrupted the discussion of how the draft maps would affect the percentages of low-income students next year.

UPDATE

The 2011-12 base address lookup feature is still up. Click here to view.

If you don't remember what the pre-choice plan maps looked like in 2011-12, click here to refresh your memory. The link puts you on Wake's school directory page. Pick a school and then click on its assignment tab. Under the assignment tab you'll find a link to a PDF map for the 2011-12 base assignment area.

If you live near Rolesville High, Rolesville Middle, Richland Creek Elementary's permanent campus off US 1 in Wake Forest near the Franklin County line or Abbott Creek Elementary's permanent campus near the North Wake Landfill you can expect you might be added to their base areas.

Also, if you live in Panther Creek High's base look for change as you're reassigned to Green Hope High since they're not using a standalone ninth-grade center for PCHS.

The board agreed with the stay where you start rules proposed in the draft plan so you'd be able to grandfather if you're an existing student.

The big news out of tonight's Wake County school board work session is that they're scrapping the draft 2013-14 student maps developed by staff.

Both majority and minority board members agreed it made more sense to go back to using the 2011-12 base maps and starting from there. Democratic members talked about only making a few changes for next year while taking a comprehensive look for the 2014-15 school year.

So many people complained about reassignments in the draft map that it tipped the balance with no one objecting tonight to scrapping them.

The 2011-12 maps will have to revised to reflect the attendance lines for the two new schools that opened this year and the two that will open next year. But board attorney Jonathan Blumberg said they now don't have to change the student assignment policy before the plan is adopted.

The Wake County school board will tackle the 2013-14 student assignment plan tonight looking at changes requested by the Democratic majority.

At Saturday's work session, which was only attended by Democratic board members, staff was asked to look at making changes to the draft plan, from elementary through high school. This could result in achievement-based changes and revisions to the middle school and high school feeder patterns.

At the same time, majority members said they don't want to move a lot of students next year and want to make changes over several years.

Acting Wake County Schools Superintendent Stephen Gainey is learning on the job right now.

As noted in today's article by Thomas Goldsmith, Gainey said he’s still developing first-hand knowledge of some of the system’s issues after having been assistant superintendent for human resources. This includes, he said, getting caught up on the status of the new student assignment plan and on the work being done for the next school construction bond referendum.

“Our role is to make sure that we are making sound requests, with research and support for why we are making that request,” Gainey said in an interview Monday.

Today's Wake County school board work session agenda looks packed.

Topics include rejoining the National Schools Boards Association's Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE), the superintendent search process, reviewing the student assignment plan and dealing with crowding at Panther Creek High School.

Let's start with CUBE, the group that gave Wake an award in 2009 for the socioeconomic diversity policy. School board chairman Kevin Hill has called accepting that award "one of the proudest moments in my long career with the Wake County Public School System."

UPDATE

The Democratic board members all said at the work session that they support rejoining NSBA and CUBE, pointing to the benefits of joining a national professional organization that represents school districts.

School board attorney Jonathan Blumberg said it would require a formal vote at an action meeting so Hill said it would be added to the Oct. 16 meeting.

Click here for the handouts for today's work session, including for rejoining NSBA and CUBE.

The firing of Wake County Schools Superintendent Tony Tata has resulted in joint meetings between the school board and county commissioners on the next school bond issue being put on hold.

In this letter dated Friday, Board of Commissioner Paul Coble writes to school board chairman Kevin Hill that there's "no reason" now to hold the joint meetings until the commissioners get resolution on issues that have been put "up in the air" by Tata's firing.

Coble wants the school board to pass a resolution on the new/revised student assignment plan. He also wants the school board to pass resolutions affirming their support, for at least the next seven years, for the  Wake Young Men's Leadership Academy and for the CTE high school.

UPDATE

Click here for the article in Tuesday's paper.

A flash poll from the conservative Civitas Institute found that the majority of respondents opposed the Wake County school board's firing of Superintendent Tony Tata.

According to the results released Thursday, 59 percent of the 400 registered voters contacted said they disapproved of the firing. Only 28 percent said they approved. Thirteen percent weren't sure.

Tata also had an higher approval rating than the school board.