It's not been easy for the Wake County school system to sell the three former administration buildings it owns in Raleigh.

As noted in today's article, the school board will vote today on an offer of $2.6 million for the Noble Road property. It's $900,000 less than the school system had hoped to get.

Proceeds from the sale are supposed to help pay for the cost of leasing and operating the new headquarters in Cary. As noted in today's article by Thomas Goldsmith, there are some questions as well about how that lease deal was handed.

UPDATE

The sale of the Noble Road site was approved 8-1 with only John Tedesco in dissent.

Former Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta raised nearly $65,000 in his unsuccessful re-election bid last fall.

In his year-end report filed Monday, Margiotta reported raising $64,902.72 and spending $61,006.11 during the hard-fought District 8 battle. The Republican incumbent outspent his Democratic opponent, Susan Evans, who raised $43,386.53 and spent $39.077.16.

But the gap narrows to nearly even and could possibly in the end be in Evans' favor when you throw in all the outside money that was spent to topple Margiotta from what was thought to be a safe seat in Southwest Wake.

The numbers keep rising in the most expensive race in Wake County school board history.

As noted in today's article, campaign finance reports filed Monday show that the candidates raised more than $470.000. The wild card though is the spending from the outside groups and the political parties, numbers which are already at $150,000 and rising.

Once the final numbers are in, the spending might hit $700,000 to $800,000 this year.

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."

Longtime Wake County school board attorney Ann Majestic is the focus of a front-page article in last week's issue of North Carolina Lawyers Weekly.

The profile details how Majestic started a legal career that will lead to her in April receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National School Boards Association Council of School Attorneys.

Much of the article focuses on Majestic's work in Wake, including her successful efforts to win over the initially suspicious Republican board majority in 2009. The article also talks about her personal views on the role of socioeconomic diversity in student assignment.

It looks like protesters were wrong if they were hoping that the new Democratic majority on the Wake County school board would be more sympathetic that the Republicans were on the issue of mediation instead of prosecution.

As noted in today's article, the school board met in closed session last week and agreed to stick with the decision made by the former majority to recommend that the protesters who disrupted board meetings in 2010 go to trial.

Since it was discussed in closed session, neither the board members or board attorney Ann Majestic are saying why the board decided not to go with mediation.

New Wake County school board member Susan Evans raised more than $40,000 in her successful bid to unseat incumbent Ron Margiotta,

In her final campaign report filed today, Evans reported raising $43,386.53 and spending $39.077.16. Margiotta hasn't filed his final report yet, but he had reported raising $52,748.31 as of Sept. 26.

But the funding gap between Evans, a Democrat, and Margiotta, a Republican, is a lot narrower considering all the outside money that was poured into the District 8 race.

The Wake County school system stands to get less than half of the $500,000 it was supposed to receive from disgraced former House Speaker Jim Black for turning over land in Matthews to pay the fine for his state corruption conviction.

Black was allowed in 2009 to turn over 9.5 acres near Charlotte to the school system to settle half of the $1 million fine he was assessed in his state corruption case. On Tuesday, the school board will vote on selling the land to the Town of Matthews for $295,427.

If approved, the school system would get $241,127 with the State Board of Elections receiving $54,300.

UPDATE

In a comment to that post, Terry Stoops, director of education studies for the Locke Foundation, says Judge Donald Stephens owes Margiotta an apology for calling him "idiotic" for having criticized the deal in 2009.

Speakers will once again have three minutes each during the public comment section at Wake County school board meetings.

School board chairman Kevin Hill said he'd institute the change starting in January. It came after new school board member Jim Martin said giving three minutes would be a "gesture of good listening" as he also noted that speakers at Wake County commissioner meetings get three minutes.

Former board chairman Ron Margiotta had cut the time to two minutes in 2010, saying it would let the board hear from more speakers during the lengthy public comment sessions. Margiotta kept it at at two minutes even after the numbers dwindled for public comment.  

One test for the new board majority will be what happens when large crowds show up to speak. Will the board extend public comments past 30 minutes or tell remaining speakers to go at the end of the meeting? The old board went both ways.

Wake County school board committees are likely to come back soon.

Wake County school board chairman Kevin Hill said that the restoration of committees will be brought up at the Jan. 10 board meeting. He said the decision was made after consulting with board vice chairman Keith Sutton and Superintendent Tony Tata.

It was pretty clear that the new board majority was moving in this direction following the discussion at the Dec. 10 board retreat.

Next will come the potentially sticky issue of handing out committee chairs and assignments. Will Hill do what former board chairman Ron Margiotta did in 2010 by giving most of the committee assignments and chairs to members of the majority?