New figures presented at Tuesday's Wake County school board meeting show more than $2 million worth of additional costs associated with the choice plan.

The biggest item is $1,089,643 that staff says is transportation operational costs for additional miles per day. The money covers funds for diesel fuel, oil, tires and parts for driving an additional 13,200 miles per day "with choice plan."

When the removal of 53 buses from the road led to transportation problems at the start of the school year, Wake responded by putting most of them back in service. Wake says they've paid $840,000 for 24 additional buses and drivers.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

After some negotiating over dates and locations, three public hearings were set today for the 2013-14 Wake County student assignment plan.

The hearings will be Nov. 28 at Sanderson High School, Dec. 3 at Davis Drive Middle School and Dec. 5 at Rolesville Middle School. All meetings would start at 6:30 p.m.

Staff explained that it was difficult at this late date finding open dates at the schools when their auditoriums aren't in use. Nov. 29 was proposed as a possible date but was rejected because the school board has a due process hearing that day.

Staff's goal was to have a hearing in the northeast region, the central region and the western region.

The Wake County school system should eventually post higher-resolution images of the maps than what's now online for the draft 2013-14 student assignment plan.

But for those who don't want to wait, you can look at the following files that I've broken up into three groups. The color-coded shading should be easier to view on the maps.

Click here to view the maps and nodes for the elementary schools in the plan. Click here to view the maps and nodes for the middle schools. Click here to view the maps and nodes for the high schools.

The school district is also planning to later post online the presentation on the plan being made at today's school board work session.

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.

Does it make sense for the Wake County school system to hold a public hearing in a part of the district where students aren't being reassigned?

Wake County school staff had proposed holding a few public hearings on the new reassignment plan in northeastern Wake, where the bulk of the moves would occur.

But at last week's work session, school board members told staff to schedule at least one hearing outside that part of the county for families who might have other questions about the plan, such as how the base declaration period will work.

There are some interesting new post-election consequences for the Wake County school board.

As noted in today's article, board member Chris Malone says he's waiting until Lori Millberg concedes the state House 35 race before resigning his seat. Malone is also deciding not to respond to the 2010 police report and board member Debra Goldman's repeated public statements that his remarks about having a heated relationship with her are untrue.

You've also got board member John Tedesco now contemplating not seeking reelection next year after going through his life savings in his bid to become state schools superintendent.

Wake County school board member Debra Goldman is getting some backlash over having secretly recorded an October 2010 meeting at her home between her and board members John Tedesco and Ron Margiotta.

Tedesco and Margiotta, the board chairman at the time, were trying to keep Goldman's support for the zone plan. A few days later, Goldman would join with the Democratic minority to kill the zone plan.

"I was shocked that she recorded it without telling us,” Margiotta said Monday. “It shows you just how unstable she is that she would tape her conversations.”

Just a day before the election, Wake County school board member Debra Goldman held a press conference this morning to respond to the 2010 police report and to attack her opponent for state auditor, Democratic incumbent Beth Wood.

The official purpose of the meeting was for Goldman to share with the electronic media the recordings she had had played to the N&O on Oct. 27. While the news conference means the questions about the 2010 report will get more coverage today, it means that Goldman is also guaranteed that there will be coverage of her attacks on Wood.

Goldman said she wanted to show "that I'm not a caricature that some members of the press have tried to color me as, that I am a real person."

Amy Lee, one of the most outspoken members of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, was appointed to a Wake County school board advisory council on Tuesday.

Lee, a North Raleigh magnet school parent, was appointed to school board vice chairman Keith Sutton's District 4 BAC. She's listed as the representative from Hunter Elementary School and also is a parent at Ligon Middle School.

Lee has provided some of the most memorable GSIW comments at school board meetings and other venues over the past few years. Here are some of them:

It looks like some more Wake County multi-track year-round schools will be recommended to be switched to a single-track calendar for the 2013-14 school year.

During Tuesday's school board work session, Laura Evans, senior director of growth and planning, offered another "peak" at the 2013-14 assignment plan that will be presented Nov. 13. She said it will include a recommendation to convert multi-track year-round schools in the Knightdale area to a single-track calendar, namely track four.

The reason the issue came up was some school board members asked if the plan for 2013-14 could address underutilized schools.