Wake County school board member Jim Martin is proposing inserting a transfer selection priority to help families who feel their situation is "hopeless" at low-performing school.

During Tuesday's school board work session, staff was reviewing the selection priorities for the first transfer application period (page numbers 7-8 on this document). This would be the new period from Feb. 18 to March 1 when families could request a transfer to any school in the district that has space. Tansportation wouldn't be guaranteed.

Martin said he wanted to bring up the issue of helping students from low-performing nodes get into high-performing schools. He said the issue was raised by several of his constituents.

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

Should the Wake County school system go back to holding early release days or Wednesdays or continue to hold them on Fridays?

It's an argument that's been batted around the last few years with many families preferring to hold the six annual early release days on Fridays while many teachers would rather they be held on Wednesdays. For the last few years, the Republican board majority had opted for using Fridays.

But with a new Democratic board majority, it could be on Wednesdays for the 2013-14 school year. Some of those board members voiced support during Thursday's student achievement committee meeting for using Wednesdays.

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:

Amid the less than good news that's marked school transportation for much of the school year, Wake County school administrators are touting they've saved $900,000 in fuel costs.

In a press release today, Wake points to the decision over the summer to buy 1.6 million gallons of diesel fuel — roughly a six-month supply — at $2.82 per gallon. Wake had originally budgeted to use three million gallons for the 2012-13 fiscal year at $3.30 per gallon, a cost of $9.9 million.

In contrast, most school districts use the state contract fuel price, which is now at $3.40 per gallon. Wake is saying that buying at the $2.82 per gallon price could result in more than $900,000 in savings for the district.

You can take a glass is half empty or half full view of Wake County student assignment in the short term.

As noted in today's article, the good news for families in the immediate future is that the 2013-14 plan is expected to have relatively few reassignments. But it's very much a transitional plan with a new plan to be developed for the 2014-15 school year that's likely to include a lot more reassignments for things such as promoting balance in student achievement and socioeconomic diversity.

"We were looking at trying to give the staff and the parents a respite so we could have the larger discussion that it seems like we’re trying to have right now, that we could have the larger discussion to put together a sustainable assignment plan," said board chairman Kevin Hill.

The firing of Wake County Schools Superintendent Tony Tata got some air time at the end of the latest edition of NC SPIN that aired over the weekend.

On the show, pundits from the left and right agreed that it was not a politically good decision for the Democratic school board majority to have fired Tata at this time. Panelists also talked about whether the next permanent superintended should be a lifelong educator.

Tom Campbell, the show host, opened the segment by saying that following Wake County schools has been like "watching a yo-yo." Campbell asked John Hood, president of the conservative John Locke Foundation, what he thought of Tata's firing, which he said "was ugly" and "many say it wasn't handled well."

Wake County school board chairman Kevin Hill is continuing his efforts to justify the board majority's firing of Superintendent Tony Tata.

As noted in today's article, Hill met Friday with N&O editors and reporters to list out issues such as concerns about Tata's relationship with board members and staff and his handling of taxpayer dollars. Some of it's similar to what he said at Tuesday's board meeting but he went into more detail.

Hill also went into how he wants to handle the superintendent's search and the timing of the next school bond issue.

UPDATE

Click here to view the letter to the editor from Kevin Hill that will appear in Tuesday's paper in response to Tata's point of view column.

The Wake County school system announced this morning that a new centralized Transportation Customer Service Center has been established to handle phone calls about bus issues.

Calls that were previously made to the 15 individual transportation districts will now automatically be forwarded to the new central center, which can be reached at (919) 856-7890. A live rep will be available from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays with people being able to leave a voice mail with their contact info afterhours.

Wake says the new center means customer service reps "will be better equipped to provide timely information on mechanical failures and other delays, and to contribute to more timely resolution of transportation-related issues."  Wake also says the new center will have "significantly increased voice mail capacity," a nod to how parents encountered full mailboxes when they called about their problems during the first month of school.

Superintendent Tony Tata has taken over the job of overseeing transportation since Don Haydon resigned last week as chief of facilities and operations.

Wake County Commissioner Phil Matthews is urging people to show up at Monday's school board meeting to rally behind Superintendent Tony Tata.

"Attention Everyone!!" Matthews posted today on his Facebook page. "Rumor is the new liberal school board members are going to try to terminate Superintendent Tony Tata on Monday at their 12:30 at a closed session! They are using a lame excuse about buses to get rid of him. Everyone needs to show up at the meeting in Cary to show their support.

He is a good friend, and is doing an outstanding job. I will take his firing personally so I am now "on record"!! Pass this on to everyone you know and contact your school board members to show your concern!"