The reactions from Republicans and Democrats on Tuesday night to the Wake County school board election results was about as different as you could get.

As noted today in this article and this article, Democrats were hailing the results as a step forward. Republicans who face four years of being in the minority were warning about a return to the days of forced busing and possibly even Superintendent Tony Tata leaving.

Speaking to reporters after the results came in, GOP board vice chairman John Tedesco said he hopes the new board majority won't try to rehash old battles.

Will Venita Peyton challenge Wake County school board member Keith Sutton for the District 4 seat?

Peyton, a real estate broker and community activist, said Tuesday that she's still mulling whether to compete for the seat that covers Southeast Raleigh. She has until Aug. 12 to file.

Cash Michaels speculated on a possible Peyton candidacy in an analysis piece last week in The Carolinian. Michaels is not a fan of Peyton, an African American Republican who has frequently criticized the old diversity policy and praised the new board majority on her Outside the Box blog.

Things definitely got heated at Wednesday night's forum looking into allegations of racial discrimination by the Wake County school system.

As noted in today's article by Thomas Goldsmith, speakers used terms like "white supremacy" and going "back to the back of the bus" to describe the move toward neighborhood schools in Wake.

“They are being introduced to blatant white supremacy in the Wake County school system,” said parent Darryl Fulton about what his four children are facing with the end of the diversity policy.

Gov. Bev Perdue and several other Democratic Party leaders are scheduled to attend a Thursday fundraiser in Raleigh for a group that's hoping to wrest control of the Wake County school board away from the Republican majority.

The stated goal of the fundraiser for the Wake Citizens for Good Government PAC is to benefit Wake school board candidates "who support high quality public schools for all children." The PAC was formed in 2009 and unsuccessfully ran a television attack ad against Republican-backed school board candidates.

The PAC was formed by Dean Debnam, president of the Democratic-leaning polling firm of Public Policy Polling. PPP has recently conducted surveys on Wake school issues for what the firm says is a private client.

It looks like the Wake County school board's budget could go back to getting greater scrutiny from the board of commissioners.

As noted in an article today in the Raleigh Public Record, Tony Gurley, chairman of the board of commissioners, wants to bring back the "purpose and function" budgeting requirements for the school system. Gurley says that school board chairman Ron Margiotta agrees with the idea, which would be a major change from how prior boards viewed the requirement.

Under purpose and function, the school system budgeted the amount it received from the county into several broad categories. The school system had to get the approval of commissioners if it changed any of the categories by more than 15 percent.

Dan Coleman, president of the Raleigh-Wake Citizens Association, is speaking out against the old Wake County socioeconomic diversity policy.

As noted in today's article, Coleman's public criticism of the diversity policy is putting him at odds with the rest of the leadership of the local African American community. But Coleman said the test data shows that the diversity policy hasn't helped Southeast Raleigh students.

The passing rate on state reading exams for Southeast Raleigh students was 46.7 percent in elementary schools and 48.6 percent in middle schools. None of the other zones in the plan being considered by the board had passing rates below 60 percent.

Considering all that the Wake County school board and county commissioners have been doing recently on their own, it will be interesting to see what happens when they meet together

Today is the first joint meeting of both boards since the new majority took control on the school board and Tony Gurley was elected chairman of the board of commissioners. The main official thing on the agenda is the discussion of alternatives to the Forest Ridge High site.

But that's just one of the things to watch for today.

The state NAACP is not happy with the Wake County school board's rejection of the group's request for 45 minutes at a board meeting.

As noted in today's article by Jim Wise, the NAACP is circulating a petition calling for school board chairman Ron Margiotta to give them the time. At Sunday's NAACP-sponsored meeting, NAACP members passed out the home telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of school board members.

"The NAACP is not going to be ... told it can come to a committee," Barber said at the rally.

Art Pope is denying being the architect of the new Wake County school board majority and Thomas Farr is saying he advised against sending out controversial postcards in the 1990 U.S. Senate campaign.

As noted in today's article, Pope said "to say I was the architect was overstated.” He's referring to an Oct. 7 e-mail message from Wake GOP finance chair Marc Scruggs in which he tells school board member Ron Margiotta that they followed Pope's plan in the election.

Pope says he raised money for the school board candidates and gave advice to Wake GOP Chairman Claude Pope, his distant cousin. But he says that was all he did during the campaign.

One of the first tests of how well the new and old school board members will get along will come early during today's meeting when a new vice chair is chosen to replace the outgoing Horace Tart.

Barring any wheeling and dealing, the new vice chair should be Ron Margiotta or one of the four new board members. How the old board handles this could say a lot.

The old board could make it a unanimous choice for vice chair or could run a second nominee for a split vote. The old board could also choose to vote against the new vice chair even though that person is the only nominee.

That happened in 2008 when Kevin Hill flipped his vote for chair, backing Rosa Gill over Lori Millberg. Even though Hill was the only nominee for vice chair, three board members voted no in protest.