Is it appropriate for Wake County school board members to hold private meetings with staff to go over the budget before it's publicly presented?

As noted in this online article by Thomas Goldsmith, school board member Debra Goldman is objecting to board chairman Kevin Hill's request that Superintendent Tony Tata set up private meetings between board members and Chief Business Officer David Neter before the budget is made public March 6. In addition, board members must agree not to publicly share the information before March 6.

It's a practice that was typically done by prior boards. But it was not exercised by Ron Margiotta when he was board chairman in 2010 and 2011.

"We should be having these discussions as a Board, together, transparently and publicly!" Goldman writes in an email to Hill. "Why the secret meetings and information embargoes?  It all just begs to ask one question... WHY would you want to hide this from the public?"

Is the Governor Morehead School for the Blind the right place to house some of the students in the Wake County school system's new single-sex leadership academies?

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata told state legislators on Tuesday that he's been negotiating with the state Department of Public Instruction to lease space at the Morehead School to house 300 students. It's part of State Schools Superintendent June Atkinson's ongoing efforts to find alternative funding to avoid closing the Morehead School.

Later at Tuesday's school board meeting, Tata provided more detail to board members. He said the plan is to house the middle school students from the leadership academies at the Morehead School.

Can the Wake County school system sell the public on the merits of the bell schedule changes for this fall?

As noted in today's article, school staff said the proposal would help Wake avoid $10 million in costs and revenue losses this fall. But school board members said it would take community outreach to explain it to parents why they're being asked to make changes of more than an hour in some cases.

"If we don't (do community outreach), we’re going to get thousands of calls and emails about this," said school board member John Tedesco.

UPDATE

Click here for the handout from the board meeting. It lists the proposed bell schedules.

Wake has fixed some errors with the individual school times from yesterday's handout. I've replaced the link with the new one. Wake made more corrections Thursday.

Michael Alves stands to get hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Wake County school system for his help implementing the new controlled-choice student assignment plan.

The school board will vote today on this contract to pay the Alves Educational Consulting Group up to $110,000 for the rest of the fiscal year. The contract pays Alves' firm for services in support of implementation of the assignment plan and the continued utilization of his proprietary "Controlled Choice" software system.

The contract expires June 30. But the contract also contains wording that it's expected to be renewed and in effect for at least the next three years.

UPDATE

The contract was approved 6-3. Jim Martin voted no. I'm not sure who else did.

It's not been easy for the Wake County school system to sell the three former administration buildings it owns in Raleigh.

As noted in today's article, the school board will vote today on an offer of $2.6 million for the Noble Road property. It's $900,000 less than the school system had hoped to get.

Proceeds from the sale are supposed to help pay for the cost of leasing and operating the new headquarters in Cary. As noted in today's article by Thomas Goldsmith, there are some questions as well about how that lease deal was handed.

UPDATE

The sale of the Noble Road site was approved 8-1 with only John Tedesco in dissent.

It looks like the Wake County school system may have gotten an extra $43.000 from the Town of Matthews foe the land turned over by disgraced House Speaker Jim Black

As noted in today's article by Melinda Johnston, school officials and the town have preliminarily agreed on a sale price of $338,000 for the land. This comes after the school board rejected earlier this month an offer of $295,427 for the land.

The deadline for a competing offer for the property was 9 a.m. today. I've asked but not found out yet whether any offer came in.

UPDATE

Wake says no one else submitted a competing bid by the Monday deadline.

As part of today's article on Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata's one-year anniversary on the job, he sat with the N&O for an extensive interview.

Here are some highlights from the interview, which touched on a variety of topics, including student assignment, the budget and how Tata evaluates his job performance.

The big topic of the moment is the implementation of the new student assignment plan. Tata was asked about the complaints from parents of charter school and magnet school students than the rules have changed on them since they can't just go to a base school now.

The Wake County school system could find that there's no such thing as a "free school" after all.

As noted in Saturday's article in The Cary News by Andrew Kenney, a developer is suing the Town of Cary and the school system for a $6 million refund on money that was given to build Mills Park Elementary School.

The lawsuit represents the latest chapter in the fallout caused by efforts by slow-growth advocates in Cary dating back to 1999 to get developers to help pay for costs such as new schools caused by their projects.

The Wake County school board rejected an offer today to sell land that disgraced former House Speaker Jim Black gave to pay part of the fine for his state corruption conviction.

The Town of Matthews offered to pay $295,427 for 9.5 acres of undeveloped land. The school board voted to request staff to seek more money from Matthews, which plans to build a park on the site.

The school system did an appraisal of the property showing it's worth $341,000. Town officials did their own appraisal showing it's worth $335,000.

In the face of what's expected to be a tight budget, Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata announced today that a hiring freeze has been implemented for the 2012-13 school year.

Schools will not be able to hire most positions for the upcoming school year, including teachers. Only certain positions such as principals, bookkeepers and lead secretaries aren't subject to the hiring freeze.

Tata said the freeze could result in employees being involuntarily transferred to other schools to meet staffing needs.