It looks like you’re going to have to face the school board at this year’s transfer appeal hearings.

Ron Margiotta has been a proponent of a recent change in state law that allows school districts to appoint hearing officers for transfer appeal hearings. School board members rebuffed him though on Tuesday.

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In case some of you guys missed it, WakePol blogged earlier this week about the sales tax fight between the school board and county commissioners.

Commmissioners have accused the school system of costing taxpayers more than $600,000 through delays in transferring property to the county. School officials say the delay only cost $70,000.

The goal is to temporarily transfer ownership of school property to the county while construction work is performed. This allows taxpayers to take advantage of the sales tax exemption that counties, but not school systems, enjoy.

Click here for the WakePol post.

Click here for an WRAL story in which Commissioner Tony Gurley is out for the blood of the school district's attorneys.

There’s definitely some skepticism from the school board about the proposal from the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and the Wake Education Partnership.

Much of the concern comes from the idea of turning over school construction to the county commissioners. Some board members are worried that commissioners will build schools to lower standards that aren’t considered sufficient.

The other part of the proposal, developing a multi-year funding formula, seems to have fewer cons from the school board’s side. But even that could have some negatives.

School board members wondered Tuesday if commissioners would want a funding level that they think is too low.

Ann Majestic, the school board’s attorney, advised the board to make sure the language in any deal is carefully worded to protect the district’s interests.

Click here to see the pros and cons that have been identified by school board members.

The school board will next discuss the proposal at a work session on Tuesday,

If you haven’t figured it out already, there’s a reason why school board members were stressing Tuesday that they’re only planning to let people opt out for the 2008-09 school year.

Board members would love it if few of the 33,000 students assigned to year-round and modified-calendar schools opt out. They wondered out loud whether parents would be reluctant to opt out for a traditional-calendar school knowing it was only a one-year assignment with no court ruling to continue the situation in the future.

Board members are particularly hoping that few low-income families opt out. They’re not happy how some traditional-calendar schools saw their F&R percentages rise due to the fact that two-thirds of those who opted out last year were from low-income families.

In an editorial in today's paper, the editorial board is urging the school system to try to work with families who consider the year-round calendar to be a "real hardship."

The editorial takes Beverley Clark, vice chairwoman of the board, to task for saying Tuesday that "these people need to go where they're supposed to go." She was referring to the fact that the board won't be seeking consent from people who enroll in Wake after June 1.

Here's the updated tally on how Wake's towns stand on at-large school board elections.

It's now split evenly with half the municipalities in support and the other half in opposition. Only Fuquay-Varina hasn't taken a stand.

On Tuesday, the Raleigh City Council passed a resolution expressing support for keeping the current method of electing school board members by district. Click here for the resolution.

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The school board has created a new top administrative post.

On Tuesday, the school board named Danny Barnes as the new chief area superintendent. He previously was the area superintendent for Eastern Wake.

The other area superintendents will report to him. The budget also calls for creating two new area superintendent slots, as recommended by the curriculum management audit.

Barnes has been in the news lately because he backed the decision by Sebastian Shipp, one of the four principals at East Wake High School, to bar students from competing in a state-sanctioned firearms tournament.

The schcool board's policy committee will discuss policy changes next week that would allow students to participate in those kinds of tournaments.

The school board decision’s to fast track the renovations for Wake Forest Rolesville High School led to some heated debate on Tuesday.

The school board formally voted to delay the opening of Bryan Road Elementary in Garner and E-25 in Wake Forest. They then voted to reallocate the money, $43.85 million, toward the Wake Forest-Rolesville High renovations.

“Funding for [Wake Forest-Rolesville] is crucially needed immediately,” said school board member Lori Millberg, whose district includes Wake Forest and Rolesville.

She and other board members argued that reallocating the funds will allow them to relocate students to the new Heritage High in 2009. With the students off campus, they say they can complete most of the renovations at WFRHS that school year.

They also argued that they've run into problems getting Bryan Road and E-25 open on schedule.

But Ron Margiotta said it was “criminal” to reallocate the money after having told the public in the 2006 bond issue that those two new schools were needed to deal with overcrowding.

Margiotta, the lone board member who opposed the reallocation, stressed that there’s no guarantee when the new schools will be built because funding will have to come from a future bond issue.

The plans could be thrown into doubt if county commissioners refuse to approve the reallocation.

There was some passionate debate on Tuesday about whether to change the consent process following the court ruling.

As noted in today’s article, the school board agreed to changes such as sending a revised consent form and not seeking consent from newcomers who enroll after June 1. It took some time to get to those decisions.

Lori Millberg kicked things off by suggesting that they reverse the earlier decision to notify the parents of 26,169 students who gave their consent last year that they can request in writing to opt out.

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The school board is making changes now that that they've got the court ruling they wanted on year-round schools.

If you enroll at a year-round or modified-calendar school after June 1, you won't be asked for your consent. You'll have to apply for a discretionary transfer. This was approved unanimously.

The board voted 5-3 to send out new consent forms to the parents of the 6,439 students who hadn't given consent before. Under the new forms, they'll be assigned to a year-round or modified-calendar school unless they return the documents and indicate otherwise.

Under the forms sent to those parents last week, the default was that they'd be sent to a traditional-calendar school if they didn't return the form.

Parents of the 26,169 students who had previously given consent will still get a letter telling them they can request in writing to opt out. Only Lori Millberg voted against a motion to still send them the letter.

Even as these accommodations were being made, board members stressed that these students who opted out will be returned for the 2009-10 school year. Only people who applied this February and last February are exempt.

CORRECTION
The motion about sending the letter to the 26,169 was incorrectly worded originally. It was a resolution to keep the current process and not to change it.

The school board has set $380.3 million as the baseline figure it wants to use for the proposed multi-year funding formula with county commissioners.

What the school board did was take the $355.5 million it agreed to ask last month and tack on $24,8 million in additional spending proposed by administrators to close the achievement gap.

This could be potentially confusing for some folks. For instance, today’s vote doesn’t change the fact that the board is still asking for $355.5 million from commissioners. Superintendent Del Burns said the $380.3 million should be considered a parallel number.

Click here for the online story.

This is all part of the plan proposed in April by the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and the Wake Education Partnership to try to end the annual budget bickering.

Both civic groups said the school board should set an amount as the baseline to be used for determining funding over the next several years.

The $24.8 million includes new initiatives that are supposed to close the achievement gap, including raising employee pay, hiring more literacy teachers and increasing space at alternative programs.

UPDATE
Click here to see the new programs presented Tuesday.

Here's the response from Wake CARES on its website:

"While we are disappointed that the ruling was not entirely in our favor, we are currently reviewing our options, and considering requesting a discretionary review by the North Carolina Supreme Court.

We sincerely appreciate the support and donations we have received. You have helped to make our voices heard, and you can continue, as we will, to advocate for parent’s rights in the Wake County Public School System by supporting at large elections of school board members."

Since today's appellate court decision was unanimous, the state Supreme Court doesn't have to hear any appeal. If the decision had been 2-1, an appeal would have automatically heard by the Supreme Court.

The school board is wrapping up a lunch break and could soon discuss how today's court ruling will impact their year-round school assignments.

You're probably safe if you applied in February to get out of a year-round school. But if you're waiting on the consent process, things could change for the 2008-09 school year.

Several board members have asked for discussion of the ruling to be added to today's work session agenda.

More details to come.

UPDATE
Rosa Gill, chairwoman of the school board, said the ruling will be discussed at the regular meeting, which is televised.

The school board has amended the agenda to include a vote on the consent process. They'll either reaffirm what happened last month or make changes based on the court ruling.

The state Court of Appeals panel made it clear in its ruling today that it felt mandatory year-round schools was not a judicial matter.

After finding that Wake has the authority to assign students to year-round schools without parental consent, the court said the administration of public schools is best left in the hands of the legislative and executive branches.

“If plaintiffs disagree with mandatory assignments to year-round schools, their remedy lies with the electoral process or through communications with the legislative and executive branches of government,” the court said in its ruling.

The State Court of Appeals has reversed the lower-court ruling requiring Wake to get parental permission to send students to year-round schools.

Click here for the ruling.

More details to come as the day goes by.

UPDATE
Click here for the online story.

In the short term, the question is whether the board will be tempted to halt the consent process or decide to continue for the 2008-09 school year.

The achievement gap should take center stage at today’s school board meeting --unless the state Court of Appeals issues its year-round ruling.

A big chunk of today’s committee of the whole meeting is dedicated toward what new programs administrators say will be needed to close the achievement gap. They’ll also lay out how much these programs will cost.

Staff will also show how they intend to measure the results of these new programs.

This should sound familiar as eliminating ethnic and socioeconomic achievement gaps was one of the main recommendations in the curriculum management audit.

It could give more fuel to the proposal by the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and the Wake Education Partnership to develop a multi-year funding formula to raise student achievement.

As noted in today’s article by Michael Biesecker, county commissioners passed a non-binding resolution on Monday saying they’d support moving forward on the concept if the school board is willing to do so as well.

Today's work session starts at 11 a.m. in the board conference room, 3600 Wake Forest Road in Raleigh.