The Wake County school system is going to have to come up with some more money to implement new programs as part of a settlement of a complaint over how it serves students with disabilities who receive lengthy suspensions.

In this July complaint, Advocates for Children's Services and attorney Mark Trustin had charged that Wake was failing to provide an appropriate alternative education to five students who missed 10 or more days due to suspensions in the 2011-12 school year.

Under this settlement agreement announced today, Wake will provide this summer a free, six-week program offering 60 hours of individualized services in math, literacy, reading, and social skills, via “in-person, live, direct instruction by a highly-qualified general and special education staff." This is open to any students with disabilities who received lengthy suspension in 2011-12, not just the five in the complaint.

The groups that want to open charter schools in Wake County for the 2014-15 school year represent a variety of different interests and offer a wide range of programming options.

As noted in today's article, 13 schools are proposed for Wake, out of a group of 28 for the Triangle for 2014. Previous reports about 14 new schools in Wake were wrong. I'll explain more in the post.

Those who filed letters of intent weren't required to provide information on their mission statement, grade structure, student projections and target population. All that will come from the application due March 1.

The Wake County school board appointed the new head of special education and an interim principal on Tuesday.

Karen Hamilton was named assistant superintendent for special education services with a salary of $120,000. She's been senior director of counseling and student services since 2007.

Hamilton was also principal of Longview School, an alternative school in Raleigh, and worked in central office as a program specialist and later director of special education services.

Martha McCaskill was named interim principal of East Wake School of Arts, Education and Global Studies in Wendell through Feb. 28. Before her retirement, she was the school's principal from 2007 to 2009.

UPDATE

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Lisa Grillo, the Wake County school system's assistant superintendent for special education services, has become the latest high-level administrator to resign since the firing of Superintendent Tony Tata.

Grillo submitted her resignation today to take the position of chief human resources officer for Baltimore County Public Schools in Maryland.

Grillo was hired by Wake in August 2011 to take the newly created $120,000 a year job overseeing special education. Grillo, like Tata, had come to Wake after having worked in the D.C. Public Schools.

Tata was fired by the board's Democratic majority on Sept. 25. Soon afterward, Judy Peppler, the district's chief transformation officer and chief of staff, submitted her resignation.

This week marks what could be a potentially major week in the history of Wake County student assignment.

As noted in today's article, the school board's policy committee will meet Tuesday to begin discussion of rewriting the student assignment policy to reintroduce diversity as one of the components. On Saturday, the school board will go over the 2013-14 draft student assignment plan that could potentially be rewritten to reflect the diversity changes.

One of the questions the school board will face is how to word the diversity component in the assignment policy. Should it be a general statement, as proposed by staff, or a more explicit document that would have a variety of income and achievement targets?

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 Wake County school board appointed one permanent and one interim principal this evening.

Daniel Zoller was hired to be principal of Lockhart Elementary School in Knightdale with a salary of $81,876. He has been an assistant principal at Wake Forest Elementary School since 2008.

Gerald Pickett was named interim principal of Southeast Raleigh High School, replacing John Wall who left to take a much higher paying job in Charlotte. Pickett has been tapped to fill in at several schools since his retirement as principal of Fuquay-Varina High School in 2005.

Pamela Doak was promoted to senior director of special education services. She's worked in Wake's Special Education Services since 2004, the last four years a s a director in the department.

UPDATE

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The Wake County school board voted tonight to accept a mediation agreement to pay $125,000 to a company that used to transport special-education students.

Peters Transportation was one of the companies that had transported special-education students, usually in personal cars. But after Wake changed the terms of the transportation contract, the company filed a lawsuit.

The mediator recommended paying $125,000.

The Wake County school system is now facing the threat of another federal civil rights complaint.

In this letter sent today to Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Advocates for Children’s Services charge that the school system is violating the civil rights of students with Spanish-speaking parents by only sending them important notices in English. The letter cites examples of three limited English proficient parents not getting information in Spanish about their children’s long-term suspension notices and special-education services.

The groups contend that failure to provide the parents of these Hispanic students the information in their primary language violates Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act. The groups charge that Wake “has a clear legal duty” to provide documents on suspensions and special education in Spanish to Spanish-speaking parents.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST FOR WAKE'S RESPONSE

The Special Education Advisory Council is holding its 4th annual Special Education Open House for Wake County parents on Thursday.

The theme of this year's forum is "What's the Big IDEA" referring to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The open house is being held at Broughton High School in Raleigh.

The event starts with a Resource Expo at 6 p.m. featuring agencies, businesses and groups from the Wake County area. At 7 p.m., Assistant Superintendent for Special Education Lisa Grillo will address the crowd before various information sessions are held.

The open house is free and open to the public. Click here to register.