Wake County Schools Superintendent Tony Tata came out with a three-point message at his State of the Schools address on Thursday.

As noted in today's article by Thomas Goldsmith, Tata talked enthusiastically about the gains that Wake made on state exams. But he warned that the results could drop as Wake and the rest of the state switches to the new common core curriculum and tests this school year.

The third prong of Tata's speech was the need "to make a compelling case" for the passage of a school bond issue in 2013.

The start of the single-sex school era in the Wake County school system officially begins today.

The Wake Young Men's Leadership Academy and Wake Young Women's Leadership Academy are holding their first day of classes under the glare of media attention. Superintendent Tony Tata, who along with school board vice chairman Keith Sutton has been among the most outspoken supporters of starting single-gender schools, will be touring both academies.

Both schools, which will offer students the chance to graduate from high school with two years of college credit, attracted a lot of parental interest. Concerns that the enrollment at the two schools would emulate their counterparts in Greensboro and be largely black have apparently turned out to be unfounded.

UPDATE

Click here for the article that appeared in Tuesday's paper on the opening of the academies.

The Wake County school system's first two single-gender schools are also unique in having strict dress codes, including school uniforms.

The Wake Young Men's Leadership Academy's dress code requires students to wear ties with a school uniform being optional. The Wake Young Women's Leadership Academy goes further in its uniform policy, requiring students to wear uniforms with the school's logo.

The men's academy has a link off its homepage to a YouTube video showing students how to tie a Windsor knot. During Thursday's open house, media specialist Chris Howell gave students lessons on how to tie a tie.

The Wake County school board voted late Tuesday to lease the former Thompson School building in Raleigh to house the Wake Young Men's Leadership Academy.

The school system will lease the building from Wake County for $1 per year. Once renovations are completed, students at the new single-sex school will relocate from their temporary home on Spring Forest Road next to East Millbrook Middle School in North Raleigh.

The Thompson School, located on 567 E. Hargett Street near downtown Raleigh, was closed in 1971. It was later turned over the county, which now houses several Human Services agencies that will relocate from the building.

Some parents have said the building should be used to house elementary school students to add additional capacity in downtown Raleigh. But that was ruled out because the cafeteria and gym are on the second floor, which would go against current state codes for elementary schools.

Are all the new themed schools and academies a threat to Wake County's magnet school program?

As noted in today's article, the Wake County school board is undergoing a review of the future of the magnet program. One of the messages the board is hearing from the magnet community, and some board members, is that the new themed schools are diluting the magnet program.

"Should expand opportunities and magnet courses should not be allowed in other schools to keep magnets attractive," according to one comment from the focus group meetings with staff at magnet schools. "Non-magnet STEM and Global Network Schools have made it harder to 'expand educational opportunities.' It makes it harder to sell magnets."

The Wake County school board will meet this afternoon to talk about the magnet school review.

There's a level of tension, both on and off the board, about what the future of the magnet program will be under the new choice plan. There's also debate about what role the themed academies, from the additional STEM schools to the new single-sex leadership academies, will have going forward.

Those issues were highlighted during last week's discussion of the draft strategic plan.

UPDATE

Click here for the magnet data being shared at today's work session.

The decision to allow all students in Wake County middle schools and high schools be eligible to participate in interscholastic sports led to some heated rhetoric from the school board.

Under this revised policy adopted two weeks ago, a student at a middle school or high school that doesn't have an interscholastic sports program will now be able to try out at another school designated by the district. The change affects two magnet middle schools, the early colleges, the alternative schools, Hilburn Drive Academy and the two new single-sex leadership academies.

The debate got so heated that school board member Deborah Prickett accused board member Jim Martin of opposing the policy because he personally disliked her, which he denied.  The rhetoric caused board member Christine Kushner and board chairman Kevin Hill to urge their colleagues to show more decorum.

The Coalition of Concerned Concerned Citizens for African American Children is backing creation of a new career and technical education high school for Wake County, but is also saying they "are concerned about how this program is being designed and implemented."

In this press release sent late Monday, the CCCAAC questions whether the former Coca-Coca Bottling factory on Wilmington Street is the right location. The group asks "would the Gov. Morehead site be better, or perhaps a site closer to eastern Wake?"

Using the Gov. Morehead School could prevent it from also housing students from the single-sex leadership academies, a program that CCCAAC has opposed.

The Wake County school system's two new single-six leadership academies could face one more hurdle in the form of possible legal action from the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

As noted in today's Triangle Politics column by Thomas Goldsmith, ACLU officials say they'll decide by next week whether to take further action on the single-sex schools. Currently, the ACLU is pouring through a voluminous pile of system records it requested.

The ACLU is trying to determine whether the single-sex schools meet the constitutional goals of having an “exceedingly persuasive justification” and showing that “the classification serves important governmental objectives and that the discriminatory means employed are substantially related to the achievement of those goals.”

It looks like fears that Wake County's two new single-sex leadership academies would become predominantly African American schools have turned out to be unfounded.

Figures released last week by the district show that white students are projected to have a plurality at both leadership academies. Critics of the academies had raised concerns that Wake's schools are modeled on two largely black single-sex schools in Guilford County.

Wake's data shows that the Wake Young Men's Leadership Academy's enrollment is projected to be 42 percent white, 27 percent black, 13 percent Asian and 11 percent Hispanic. The school will also have 43 percent of its students receiving federally subsidized lunches.