The speakers at Monday's student assignment public hearing were largely unhappy with the Wake County school board.

As noted in today's article, several of the speakers, a crowd made up mostly of western Wake residents, complained about the choice plan being dropped. They weren't happy that choice plan's feeders aren't being guaranteed and that the calendar options are changing for some families.

"How can you not honor the promise made by the board before you?" said Apex parent Erika Phillips about not guaranteeing the choice plan feeders.

It looks like Wake County school board chairman Kevin Hill came up with a way tonight to reduce incidents between board members.

Before the start of the student assignment public hearing, school board member Debra Goldman said she wanted to address the crowd now because Hill has told board members not to talk to the crowd during the meeting. Goldman welcomed parents to the meeting in her district and let them know she can relate to them because she too has gone through reassignment in Wake.

This practice of not talking to the public is similar to how assignment hearings have traditionally gone. In Hill's absence Wednesday, board members talked to the crowd after the hearing ended, culminating with the microphone incident between board members Deborah Prickett and Susan Evans.

You could hear a lot more tonight from those who aren't officially being reassigned in the new Wake County student assignment plan.

As of early Friday afternoon, 28 people had signed up to speak at tonight's public hearing at Davis Drive Middle School in Cary. Twenty-one of the speakers are from western and southwestern Wake, none of whose students are among the 1,479 officially being reassigned in the plan.

This could mean, as was the case last week, that many of the people tonight are those who are affected by changing the feeders from the choice plan back to the 2011 base assignments or whose calendar options have been revised.

The 1,479 students are only those in the base nodes whose assignments from 2011-12 would be different in 2013-14. A hearing was added in Cary in case people in other areas of the county wanted to give feedback.

The start of the Keith Sutton era as Wake County school board chairman is expected to begin Tuesday.

The board will hold an organizational meeting on Tuesday to select a chair and vice chair for the next year. Sutton, the board's vice chairman, said that Kevin Hill has told him he won't seek another term as board chairman.

While Sutton won't outright say he's running for chairman, it's pretty clear if you read between the lines.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

Wake County school board member Susan Evans has apologized, with a caveat, to having yanked the microphone away from colleague Deborah Prickett on Wednesday.

As noted in today's article, Evans called Prickett to apologize for having grabbed the microphone out of her hands. But Evans, along with fellow board member Jim Martin, contend that Prickett was out of order for having polled the crowd at the student assignment hearing if they're satisfied with the choice plan.

"I certainly want to admit that taking the microphone away from Mrs. Prickett was not an appropriate way to deal with her violation of the rules of order," Evans said.

It may not officially be called a "reassignment" by the Wake County school system, but you'd have a hard time telling that to the parents who attended Wednesday's public hearing on the assignment plan.

As noted in today's article, the largest contingent of speakers at the hearing were from the Durant Trails community. They were complaining about proposed changes in their year-round school options.

The majority of the speakers Wednesday were complaining about things that aren't counted in the 1,479 student assignment number in the plan. In addition to changes in calendar options, you've got changes in the feeders from what was in the choice plan.

Some of the most heated moments at tonight's Wake County student assignment public hearing took place after it officially ended.

Normally school board members don't talk during the hearings, but after the hearing ended those in the audience demanded their questions be answered. Board members assured the crowd they'd hear their concerns.

In one of the more contentious exchanges after the hearing, school board member Susan Evans yanked the microphone out of board member Deborah Prickett's hand.

The turnout isn't huge at tonight's Wake County student assignment public hearing.

There are only about 50 people in the auditorium at Sanderson High School. A total of 24 people have signed up to speak so far tonight.

The start of the meeting is being delayed to allow for a late-arriving school board member.

There seems to be widespread agreement among Wake County school board members that enrollment caps, especially the new partial caps, are a good idea.

But as noted in today's article, board members were hesitant at Tuesday's policy committee meeting to sign off on proposed revisions to the capping policy. The main revision requested by staff was to insert new wording allowing the superintendent to implement partial caps to go along with existing wording permitting the board to set full caps.

“This is one of the items that I think all of us found pleasantly surprising in the proposal that we all sort of agreed to," said board member John Tedesco of the partial caps.

There's still plenty of space left it you want to sign up to speak at one of the three public hearings on the Wake County student assignment proposal.

Only 16 people had signed up as of early this afternoon for Wednesday's public hearing at Sanderson High School. Similar numbers have registered to speak Monday at Davis Drive Middle School and Wednesday at Rolesville Middle School.

You've got two minutes to speak. But school board members have said the time might be extended to three minutes if there aren't many speakers on the docket.

Click here to sign up to speak.