There are some interesting facts when you look at which Wake County base schools lost applicants to magnet schools for the 2011-12 school year.

A lot of Walnut Creek Elementary families took the advice of supporters of the old diversity policy who urged them to consider applying out based on the high percentage of F&R students on campus. The data shows that 55 out of 141 magnet applicants from Walnut Creek got accepted.

At nearby Barwell Road Elementary, you apparently had a lot of families who didn't want to hang around and see how it would fare under the new Renaissance Schools Model. You had 80 out of 229 magnet applicants get accepted compared to 35 out of 149 last year.

The Wake County school system is touting how things have improved in the district since use of the SAS EVAAS program has increased this school year.

In a school district press release earlier this week, principals say EVAAS is helping them to better educate students and assess teacher effectiveness. Prior to the 2009 school board elections in which the new board members urged the use of EVAAS, the program got a much cooler reception in Wake.

“It’s a wonderful tool,” said East Wake Middle School Principal Nancy Allen in the press release. “With just a click of a mouse and I can find out all kinds of information about my school. That’s how I’ve got to make the decisions about where to take my school.”

It looks like Wake County teachers want to work in more affluent schools.

The most requested schools for teacher transfers are typically those in more affluent parts of the county. Wake schools with higher poverty levels tend to see far fewer requests from teachers to work there. (The requests are made by current teachers who want to work elsewhere in Wake.)

Excluding the new schools opening this summer, the five most requested schools this year are Davis Drive Middle, Holly Springs Elementary, Salem Middle, Brier Creek Elementary and Holly Ridge Elementary.

The four new schools opening next year now have principals and two other schools are getting new leaders.

The school board announced tonight that Mark Savage will become the principal of the new Heritage High in Wake Forest. Savage has been principal of Wakefield HIgh since 2006.

Savage will receive a salary of $100,720.

CORRECTED TO SAY THAT NANCY ALLEN WORKS FOR CARTERET COUNTY SCHOOLS. UPDATED TO INCLUDE BIO SHEETS AT END OF POST

We'll see Tuesday just how far the school board is willing to go to make it harder for some families to make it into magnet schools, year-round schools or traditional-calendar schools.

During Tuesday's work session, staff will ask the board "to identify any revisions or additional guidelines" to the magnet/select criteria. Click here for the guidelines that were used last year.

As noted in a previous post, there's been growing complaints from board members that the current magnet selection guidelines aren't strict enough.

One of the questions that parents and some school board members are asking is what's changed in the past month for Broughton High to be in danger of losing its magnet program.

After all, the school board had unanimously agreed on Oct. 21 that Broughton should keep its International Baccalaureate Program. But now a majority of board members are supportive of removing the magnet program.

School board member Beverley Clark, who is leading the charge to demagnetize Broughton, gave an explanation on Tuesday.