Student assignment and diversity accounted for much of the questions that Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata faced Thursday night at the meeting organized by NC HEAT.

As noted in today's article, Tata talked several times about the task force that will hold its first meeting this afternoon for developing a new long-term student assignment plan. He repeatedly said that a focus of the task force will be on figuring out a way to avoid leaving schools with high concentrations of low-performing students.

"It’s clear that for me the student assignment plan really has to address avoiding high concentrations of low-performing students," Tata told the crowd. "That’s the framework and prism from which I’m addressing.”

The biggest response from Tuesday's Wake County school board meeting may come from something that's not on the agenda.

A large turnout is expected of critics of the hiring of Anthony Tata as the new superintendent. During last week's meeting, a small but vocal crowd groaned at statements made by GOP members while cheering on Democrats who opposed hiring Tata.

If the board had passed Carolyn Morrison's motion last week, they would have delayed the vote until after Tuesday's public comment section.

Wake County school board member Keith Sutton wants the school district to begin setting priorities for things to protect in the face of next year's budget crunch.

Sutton got the process started at last week's finance committee meeting, where he proposed ideas such as protecting pre-K funding, providing enough funding for alternative schools and improving the academic performance for African American male students.

Sutton said he's hoping the full school board will have a similar discussion on the issue.

How well do you think the new and somewhat fractured majority on the Wake County school board performed this past school year?

As noted in today's article, this past year saw a lot of fire and brimstone on the issue of student assignment and school diversity. While the former majority members say they wish they could have done more, they're pleased overall with what they did accomplish on student assignment and other issues.

“We’ve been doing some good things," said school board member Chris Malone. "We’re moving forward. We’re trying to get student assignment worked out."

No decision has been made yet by federal investigators whether to pursue the civil rights complaint that the NAACP filed against the Wake County school system in late September.

The allegations are still under evaluation by the Office of Civil Rights to determine if they are appropriate for investigation and resolution, according to Jim Bradshaw, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education.

The U.S. Department of Justice is reviewing the complaint, according to Xochitl Hinojosa, a DOJ spokeswoman.

Track My Steps is planning tonight to call for "education reform in Eastern Wake County."

In a media alert, Track My Steps says a community discussion will be held tonight about suspensions, graduation rates, academic achievement and resources. Organizers say there's a need to act because Eastern Wake has the highest suspensions in Wake County and the seconded lowest graduation rate.

Track My Steps said a plan of action will be introduced to change the perception of education in Eastern Wake.

The forum will run from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at East Regional Library, 946 Steeple Square Court in Knightdale.

Some clarity about the Wake County student assignment process could emerge from Tuesday's school board work session.

The agenda for Tuesday's work session includes a discussion on student assignment. School board chairman Ron Margiotta said he's hoping the discussion about the new directive that was passed last week will answer the questions that board members have about how to proceed.

In addition to talking about the directive, Margiotta said they'll also discuss the equity presentation that was made at this week's student assignment committee meeting.

The state NAACP announced today that it had filed a federal Title VI complaint accusing the Wake County school system of racial discrimination over student assignment and disciplinary issues.

The civil rights complaint, filed late Friday afternoon, is based on three arguments. The first argument is that reassignments made this year by the new school board majority were intentionally discriminatory based on race.

The complaint is citing the reassignment of black students from Garner High to Southeast Raleigh High and of white students from Stough Elementary to Lacy Elementary. Mark Dorosin of the UNC Center for Civil Rights says those moves were made with "discriminatory intent."

In the absence of zero tolerance, Wake County's new student discipline policy will rely on principals making case-by-case judgments in the future.

As noted in today's article, principals will consider aggravating factors when making some suspensions longer and mitigating factors when making some suspensions shorter. The next few months are supposed to give time for principal feedback and to provide training of the new rules.

School administrators gave examples yesterday of how the aggravating and mitigating factors might be considered by principals.

Here's quick review of what Wake County Superintendent Donna Hargens called an end to zero tolerance discipline policies in the district.

The district is working on a complete overhaul of discipline policies that would go into effect in January. Most offenses would now be subject to a short-term suspension with the ability for a principal to set a long-term suspension based on aggravation factors.

A few offenses, such as drug distribution, would remain long-term suspensions with the principal able to set a short-term suspension based on mitigating factors.

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