Parents of East Wake High school students soon will have their last chance to weigh in on the school's four-concept program.

About five years ago, the school board decided to divide the school into four schools: the School of Engineering, the School of Global Studies and Creative Arts, the school of Health Science and the school of Integrated Technology. The idea was to see if smaller schools and more one-on-one instruction would lead to better test scores.

East Wake High trails other high schools in the county on standardized test scores.

Now, the board plans to look and see if the idea is working. While the item is not on the agenda, the May 19 school board meeting at 3 p.m. does give the public a chance to speak. Speakers are asked to sign up before the meeting.

That's one meeting before when they will likely make a decision June 2 on the school's future, according to Lori Millberg, who represents District 1 which includes eastern Wake county and Wake Forest.

By that time, the board will have preliminary end-of-year test results and will be able to make a sound decision, according to Millberg.

Also on May 19, East Wake High School Principal Craig Baker will be discussing the four-school concept at a Zebulon Chamber of Commerce sponsored luncheon. It is open to the public. For more information, call the chamber at 269-6320.

Tonight's tornado-plagued school board meeting is finally done.

The board was meeting in closed session when the tornado warning was announced. The board members and other people still at Wake Forest Road relocated to the interior of the building — the first-floor offices of Growth and Planning.

Amid a crowd of parents and kids who had come for Spotlight on Students, the board reconvened the meeting. The board then passed the resolution calling on the state to let them have less than 180 days of school so that employees can use their furlough time.

The school board now has an official conflict of interest policy for its members.

The board adopted the new policy last week at the recommendation of the N.C. School Boards Association. The board has been reviewing its policies for the past several months, including adopting an ethics policy in March.

Previously, the only reference to conflicts of interest was at the tail end of a policy on performance of duties which said board members should "have no business interests which will conflict with the activities of the Board."

The school board has a new ethics policy.

The board approved the new code of ethics last week. The code is being recommended for adoption statewide by the N.C. School Boards Association.

The code says that board members shall "remember always that a board member's first and greatest concern must be the educational welfare of the students attending the public schools.

Amid a painful discussion of looming budget cuts, school board members agreed today to not take a pay raise.

Staff had built into the budget proposal a 2 percent increase in salaries for board members. Board pay is tied into state pay raises for teachers, which staff is projecting to be 2 percent this coming fiscal year.

Board members said it wouldn't be right to take the extra money in light of all the cuts and potential layoffs.

UPDATE

Click here for the online story. 

It's going to be a tough love kind of meeting today between the school board and county commissioners.

As noted in today's article, County Manager David Cooke said he’ll talk bluntly to school board members as he walks them “step-by-step” through the limitations on borrowing more money in the face of steep declines in tax revenues.

“It gets down to what you can afford given the current realities of the economy,” Cooke said in the article. “It’s not that we like having to make these tough choices, that’s just where we are.”

At-large school board elections for Wake are back before the General Assembly.

State Sen. Neal Hunt filed S-72 on Wednesday calling for four of the nine Wake school board seats to be elected on an at-large, countywide basis. The other five seats would continue to be elected on a district basis.

Hunt, who introduced a similar bill in 2007, said the purpose of his legislation is to allow voters to have a say on a majority of the school board seats.

The school system could regret making a new enemy in Dana Cope.

Cope, one of the Lacy parents facing reassignment, said a new group called the Children's PAC will be formed to help elect school board candidates "who will listen to the facts" and not make "politically expedient decisions."

As noted in today's article, school board member Beverley Clark is asking the board to revisit the Lacy moves on Wednesday. But Cope said parents have become so disgusted by the reassignment process that they're going ahead with the PAC no matter what the school board does now with Lacy.

UPDATE

Cope says the paperwork for the PAC was filed this afternoon. 

The school board has decided to hold tomorrow's work session on the reassignment plan in Raleigh and not Cary.

The meeting, for now scheduled to start at 9 a.m., will be in the board conerenece room at 3600 Wake Forest Road in Raleigh. The meeting was scheduled to be heard in a larger room in the district's Cary offices on Corning Road.

UPDATE

The school board ended the work session in the middle of the discussion of Lacy Elementary without taking a vote. They're starting the work session at 9 a.m. after all instead of 8 a.m. on Friday. They can't change the time because it's already been posted for 9 a.m. 

Today's school board meeting has now been cancelled, leading to some practical consequences on the reassignment plan.

Today's meeting will now be held at 3 p.m on Thursday, the same day as the student reassignment work session. The board will start the work session at  9 a.m. before transitioning to the regular meeting.

Due to the rescheduling, Thursday's activities will now be back at the main  admin building on Wake Forest Road in Raleigh instead of the Crossroads II building in Cary.