Social media has been abuzz with stories about what happened Thursday afternoon at Enloe High School that resulted in the arrest of seven students for throwing liquid-filled balloons at classmates.

Rumors have circulated that the balloons were filled with some pretty nasty liquids such as urine, paint and bleach. But Raleigh police and Wake County school offiicals said Friday that there's no evidence at this point that there was anything other than water in the balloons.

The possibility that these balloons might be filled with more than just water caused Enloe to keep students in their classrooms during seventh period.

CORRECTION/UPDATE

Police say seven students were arrested for the water balloon incident. Updated to say the 17-year-old student charged with assault and battery is a freshman.

it's safe to say that the ongoing struggle over who will control school construction in Wake County had a noticeable impact on Thursday's joint meeting of the school board and county commissioners.

As noted in today's article, several heated exchanges between school board members and commissioners took place as they discussed this $939.9 million school construction program. Officials readily acknowledged that the Senate's passage of Senate Bill 236 on Wednesday helped raise the emotions.

"You’ve got some lingering tension over the victory we had in the Senate yesterday,” said Joe Bryan, chairman of the board of commissioners, in an interview. “We’ve got to come together to get a bond passed.”

Here's a quick update on the status of the search for Wake County's next schools superintendent.

School board chairman Keith Sutton said today that interviews with the four semi-finalists went well this week. He said the board will narrow the list to a set of finalists who will be announced at Tuesday's board meeting.

Details of when the finalists would return to Wake County to meet the pubic will be announced next week. The board is expected to make a final vote by the first week of June, perhaps at the June 4 meeting.

More to come later, but there was an abrupt end to today's joint Wake County school board and board of commissioners meeting on the bond issue.

School board chairman Keith Sutton adjourned the meeting early to cut off the heated exchange between Commissioner Paul Coble and school board member Jim Martin. Coble accused the school board of not showing how it was going to stretch dollars to save money while Martin accused him of not making honest statements to the public.

In one particularly heated moment, Martin asked Coble to say how he'd save money. Martin asked if Coble wanted mandatory year-round, saying he'd offer to share with him all the letters from parents who hate the idea.

We've got some additional details this morning about the impact of this possible $939.9 million Wake County school construction program.

County finance staff project that it would take an $810 mllion bond referendum and $129.9 million in cash to cover all the projects. It would result in a 5.53 cent property tax rate increase, or $145.72 more per year on a $263,500 home.

Commissioners and school board members are reviewing the list of projects Thursday morning as the next step toward putting the bond referendum on the ballot. Click here for now to view the meeting materials.

The $939.9 million list doesn't include the $53.8 mllion in other projects that the school board says it has or expects to have funding for. You've got $43.8 million from available bond funding and $10 million from expected sales of school properties.

Are state Senate Republicans just giving some county governments more flexibility over school construction or are they trying to exact more political payback on the Democratic-led Wake County school board?

As noted in today's article, Senate Democrats charged that Republican legislators were deliberately going after the Wake school board in Senate Bill 236. Senate Republicans denied politics were involved, just as they denied that politics was behind Senate Bill 325, the Wake school board redistricting bill.

The bill comes as the Wake County school board and county commissioners meet this morning to go over a proposed $939.9 million school construction program that would largely be funded by the fall bond issue.

In a late addition to today's calendar, the state Senate approved legislation that would allow the Wake County Board of Commissioners and eight other county boards to take over school construction.

Senate Bill 236 was approved 33-15 with Republicans in support and Democrats in opposition. Sen. Neal Hunt said the bill just makes business sense for commissioners to be in charge of construction.

But Sen. Josh Stein charged the bill was targeted at Wake County and was "payback" for the public voting in a Democratic school board majority. Sen. Dan Blue charged it was another case of "meddling" in the affairs of Wake and ensures defeat of the school bond issue this fall.

The bill now goes to the state House.

More to come later, but the state Senate Education Committee approved this morning a revised version of Senate 236 Bill, the school construction bill.

The bill, which now goes to the Finance Committee, now only affects nine counties, including Wake County. An amendment from Sen. Josh Stein to drop Wake was rejected.

Stein and school board vice chairwoman Christine Kushner basically raised the points from the school district handout for why the county shouldn't take over schools. They argued the system now works and doesn't need to be changed.

Sen. Neal Hunt argued that commissioners have more business experience than school board members. Joe Bryan, chairman of the board of commissioners, told the committee that the school board had become "a board of construction versus a board of education."

UPDATE

The state Senate is moving quickly today to adopt Senate Bill 236. The Senate Finance Committee added the bill to its agenda and approved the legislation.

It's been added to today's calendar for a vote by the full Senate..

The Wake County school system has been working to persuade state legislators why it would be a mistake to allow county commissioners to take over school construction.

As the state Senate Education Committee discusses Senate Bill 236 this morning, don't be surprised if Democratic lawmakers repeat some of the arguments that the school system has made in this handout.

Wake's handout focuses on the school system having more construction experience, both in schools and in general, than the county.

Wake County school board member Bill Fletcher is calling a bill turning over school construction to the county commissioners "bad legislation" that "should be stopped."

In this letter to the editor today, Fletcher complains that Senate Bill 236 "removes the school system from having any input into what is built, where it is built and when it is built." He writes that "it abolishes the system of checks and balances that has worked well for Wake County residents for decades."

"The people responsible for providing high-quality education in safe, nurturing environments will have absolutely no say in what goes into new schools and renovations in the future," Fletcher writes. "All decisions about future school buildings will rest with only the county commissioners."

His letter comes as the state Senate Education Committee will pick up the bill Wednesday.