If you're one of the people who've wondered if a four-day work week would be the way to deal with school budget cuts in Wake County, it's not considered a viable option yet.

Chief Business Officer David Neter laid out eight different options Wednesday they said had been suggested by people, including school board members, for coping with $20 million in state cuts. Those eight options were all rejected for various reasons.

Neter said it would take a change in state law to allow Wake to move to a four-day work week. State law requires schools to have both 180 days and 1,000 hours of instruction.

Here's a recap of today's Wake County school board finance committee discussion.

Administrators said that schools would have to bear the brunt of the $20 million in new state cuts because central services has been slashed so much in the past. Here's a list of the cuts.

The upshot is that schools will probably have larger class sizes and fewer teachers, teacher assistants, media specialists and school supplies. Athletic coaches, department chairs and other teachers receiving extra duty pay will see a 30 percent cut for those services.

The Wake County school system is celebrating having nearly 200 teachers receive national certification this year.

New figures released today show that 197 Wake teachers earned the prestigious distinction in 2009 from the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards. That's the third-most of any district nationally.

Wake's has 1,702 nationally certified teachers. Nationally, only Broward County in Florida has more nationally certified teachers.

The TAP program could get a big boost now that the new school board majority is set to take over on Tuesday.

As noted in today's article, the new majority thinks TAP can help provide incentives for teachers to work at high-poverty schools, which would increase in some areas under neighborhood schools.

It's a shift from how TAP was viewed by the old board as a supplement to the diversity policy. Outgoing board members such as Patti Head had thought of using TAP in schools where the F&R percentages were high despite efforts to balance enrollment.

Around 1,600 of Wake's 9,000 teachers will get a pay raise after all this year.

The state, which pays the base salaries for most teachers, froze teacher pay so no one would get a raise. State employees didn't get a raise because of the budget woe.

Some districts, including Wake, are finding a way to give some teachers a raise, working out to between $200 and $350. It will cost $420,000 in local funds that Wake will pull from savings elsewhere in the budget.

UPDATE

Click here for Wednesday's article.

A new survey from the Civitas Institute shows limited support for the Wake school system and the diversity policy.

Civitas surveyed 500 Wake likely voters earlier this month on a variety of topics such as student reassignment, diversity, school funding and teacher pay. Keep in mind the conservative perspective that Civitas is coming from, which can be seen in the way some questions are worded.

Civitas' conservative perspective doesn't mean you ignore the survey results. But it's something you keep in mind, just like you'd do when looking at surveys from the Democrat-leaning Public Policy Polling.

Julie Nau, a retired teacher and the former head of the group representing Wake's school employees, has applied for Beverley Clark's vacant District 6 school board seat.

Nau filed her application earlier this week but it's incomplete and is missing some of the necessary paperwork. In what's in now, she stresses her years as a teacher, her experience at Wake NCAE and her community service.

Nau wrote that her three strategies for advancing the board's 100 percent graduation goal would be to promote success for all students, healthy schools and an involved citizenry.

You can understand why Casey Ash is leaving the Wake school system to take a job teaching social studies at a much higher paying charter school in New York City.

As some of you have already noted, Ash was mentioned in a New York Times article last week about a new charter school opening in September in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan.

Ash was billed as being part "of an eight-teacher dream team" that will receive a salary of $125,000. They also will be eligible for bonuses, based on schoolwide performance, of up to $25,000 in the second year.

Does the fact that Wake can't get every school under 40 percent F&R mean teacher merit pay is warranted?

As noted in today's article, that was a point raised Tuesday by school board member Eleanor Goettee. It was echoed by board member Lori Millberg, who noted how she has many schools above 40 percent in her district.

"We have some schools that just can't get below 40 percent free and reduced lunch," Goettee said. "We are being negligent if we don't look for money to address needs in these high needs schools."

Stimulus money and differentiated teacher pay dominated today's finance committee meeting.

School board members heard about how the district will use $31 million in stimulus money. The feds are requiring the money to be used for Title I and special education.

Staff says it will save or create at least 97 jobs.