Should the Wake County school board reallocate money from the last bond issue to pay for upgrading Athens Drive High School's athletic stadium improvements or continue to leave it as part of the next construction program?

The Athens Drive community has been in an uproar since Wake County Commissioner Paul Coble questioned at last week's joint meeting including the project as part of the next capital improvement program. Parents spoke at Monday's commissioners meeting about why they felt the project needs to be funded.

Coble's response Monday was to question a request from the school system to reallocate money from the 2006 capital improvement program. He suggested the school board tap into that fund instead to pay for Athens Drive.

Much of the coverage of today's Wake County school board meeting will be focused on the release of the names of the superintendent finalists.

But the school board will be doing other things that will have a significant impact on the new superintendent. For one thing, the board will have the second and final reading on the revised student assignment policy that the new superintendent will be in charge of turning into a plan.

The second reading, as is standard, is listed on the consent agenda. It's pretty safe to say that one or more board members will request it be placed on the action agenda for it to be discussed and voted on separately.

Is an out-of-school suspension for five days and being arrested by police for disorderly conduct or assault charges the proper punishment for last week's water balloon prank at Enloe High School?

The Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children is questioning the response by the school district and Raleigh police. But as noted in today's column by Barry Saunders, Wake school officials say suspensions were issued not for throwing balloons but disobeying the rules.

“Some students — let’s be specific, a small percentage of them — simply were not following the rules," said Wake schools spokeswoman Renee McCoy in the column. "They had been warned the day before by the principal on the intercom” that no disruptive pranks would be tolerated.

UPDATE

See update at end of post in which Calla Wright sent a new message Tuesday, copied to the media, requesting a meeting with Wake County school leaders to discuss the Enloe suspensions and arrests.

It doesn't look like there will be a budget fight this year between the Wake County school board and board of commissioners.

Citing the increased revenues from the improving economy, Wake County Manager David Cooke recommended today fully funding the school board's request for an $8.3 million increase. You may also see the number being reported as a $9.2 million increase because the school system is counting separately the $856,000 that the county is providing to help pay for the lease of the Crossroads II school office complex.

School board vice chairwoman Christine Kushner welcomed the good budget news at a time when the school district, which is using $28 million from its fund balance to balance the budget, is looking at potentially deep state cuts.

"Most of our cuts are coming from the state," Kushner said. "That's where our biggest issues are. But ss far as the county, they're giving us an increase."

Interim Wake County Schools Superintendent Stephen Gainey is among 10 superintendents who are raising concerns about equation changes being considered by the Republican-led General Assembly.

In a letter to the editor in today's Charlotte Observer, the superintendents of the state's 10 largest school districts object to providing vouchers for children to attend private schools. Various bills in the legislature would provide tax credits or scholarships for some students to attend private schools.

"On nearly every national survey of per-pupil spending (when all funding sources are counted), North Carolina is in the bottom 20 among the 50 states," according to the letter. "In recent years, education funding has been cut. Now that the economy is improving, is this the best and wisest use of money to strengthen our children’s education?"

Joe Bryan, chairman of the Wake County Board of Commissioners, has got some definite plans in mind should the state House also sign off on the bill letting them take over school construction from the school board.

Senate Bill 236 would give commissioners in nine counties the ability to oversee all facets of school construction, including locating, purchasing, owning, building, maintaining and renovating schools. Bryan said it's his intention to press for the county to assume the majority of the construction responsibilities from the Wake County school system.

Bryan said he'd like to see how they can merge the county and school system's construction departments. The county would need more than its current staff to oversee the $1.8 billion in school property and handle projects from future bond issues.

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 public 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.