Could classroom crowding and course offerings get worse in Wake next year?

As noted in today's article, that's something that Wake Supt. Del Burns is hoping to avoid with the $20 million in Central Services cuts that he wans to make for next fiscal year. But he's not ruling out the possibility that more classroom cuts could be needed for next school year.

"We're trying to preserve the services we now have," Burns said.

Wake Supt. Del Burns announced plans today to cut $20 million from the Central Services budget for the upcoming fiscal year

The cuts still have to be identified but would come from areas not based at schools. He's hoping these cuts will reduce the amount that could be cut from school spending.

Burns said he called for the cuts now because Wake is facing $17 million in both additional costs and cuts in funding for next year that have to be addressed.

Click here for the district's press release.

UPDATE

Click here for the online story. 

It looks we've got some ominous budget news coming Thursday from Superintendent Del Burns.

The school district sent out a press release this afternoon that Burns will hold a media briefing on Thursday to make an "announcement" on the 2010-11 fiscal year budget. The press release doesn't give details but it's not likely going to be good news.

State revenue collections are down, fueling fears that cuts will be ordered.

Kevin Hill, chairman of the school board, said the briefing was arranged by staff and not the board. While he didn't know what Burns will say, he expects him to announce what preparations are being made for the next fiscal year.

The class-size waivers are now in the hands of the state Board of Education.

As noted in today's article, the school board voted Tuesday to request waivers for 329 K-3 classes at 66 elementary schools. School administrators are blaming the need for the waivers on the state budget problems.

"We’re not at a position we want to be in," Supt. Del Burns told board members. "We wish classes weren’t at this size. We’re still dealing with the impact of the economy.”

We're getting a look today at how the budget woes are impacting class sizes.

Staff will ask the school board to vote today on approving K-3 class-size waivers for 66 of Wake's 102 elementary schools. It affects 329 classes.

Because of the state revenue shortfall, Wake told principals to only fill 95 percent of their positions this year. School leaders warned that class sizes would go up.

Considering how much supporters of the diversity policy made Charlotte-Meckkenburg schools a boogeyman during the school board campaign, the new board members arguably are having the last laugh now.

As noted in today's article, the new 2009 state report cards show that Charlotte's black and low-income students are outperforming their peers in Wake on state EOG and EOC exams.

"We're not saying that Charlotte is the right way, but the fact that they're doing better than us shows how poorly we've been doing," said new school board member John Tedesco in the article.

It's going to be an unhappy holiday season for some school district employees.

The school board voted today to lay off eight people whose jobs are at least partially funded by the construction program. Two other vacant positions are being eliminated.

It's the second round of what's expected to be three waves of cuts to construction program management.

The new N.C. School Report Cards are out with 2008-09 school year data.

Since these report cards have been used in the past to compare Wake and Charlotte-Mecklenburg, let's revisit the issue again. Wake gets less money and does better overall than CMS, but CMS does better among several subgroups.

Let's start with test results.

CORRECTED CMS OVERALL PASSING RATE ON BOTH EOGS. 

Chalk this up as another example of how things are changing on the school board.

The Wake County Taxpayers Association is announcing that school board candidate John Tedesco and the three newly elected school board members will speak at the group's monthly meeting on Thursday.

They'll be joined by current school board member Ron Margiotta, called "our hero" by the WCTA, and Allison Backhouse of the Wake Schools Community Alliance.

School board member Lori Millberg makes a direct pitch for for the candidates she's endorsing while taking a shot at others in a letter to the editor in today's newspaper.

In the letter, Millberg claims "much of the data published by some of the candidates" are "misinterpreted and in many cases are completely wrong." She argues that going to a system of neighborhood schools, such as in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, will be more expensive and less cost effective.

Millberg says that "to get the best value for your tax dollar, vote for Rita Rakestraw, Horace Tart, Karen Simon and Lois Nixon."

Millberg is echoing a position that's being repeatedly made, especially in the closing days of the campaign, that maintaining the diversity policy is cheaper financially.