Leesville families fighting the year-round conversion efforts are ramping things up.

Concerned and Committed Leesville Parents (CCLP) has issued a press release and formed a Web site to promote the message that Leesville Road elementary and middle schools should be on a traditional calendar. They've got yard signs and car magnets.

But as noted in today's North Raleigh News article, it's not a one-sided fight. Leesville parents who support year-round conversion are becoming more vocal to counter opponents.

The Broughton High School community is sweating out the possibility that the school will lose its magnet program.

As noted in today's Midtown Raleigh News article, fears have been heightened since the school board voted last week to demagnetize Daniels Middle School. Parents have been lobbying school board members to not target Broughton as well next week.

“It worries me that will trickle over to Broughton,” said Caryll Poole, who has children at Broughton and Daniels, in the article. “That’s the next short step.”

The spectre of a high school being built on the site of a potential slave cemetery in Northeastern Wake County is leading to some pretty tough words being used by critics.

As noted in today's article, critics on their Web site say that letting the school be built would be like treading on the suffering of the slaves buried there. (While one historian says it's "clearly a slave cemetery," no official determination has been made by the state yet.)

"What a disgrace to our heritage and our nation," according to the Web site. "I guess the slaves are in their way, and they are to be discarded just as they were, when they were of no longer use to their owners."

UPDATE

Cilick here for the online story from today's board meeting.

The school board will find out today just where the budget axe may need to go to make up for the county's economic problems.

As noted in today's article by Michael Biesecker, county commissioners agreed Monday to borrow $300 million to cover ongoing construction projects. But it's still $154 million less than what the county had tried to sell in bonds recently.

The school system will get most of the $300 million and have to make up most of the $154 million in cuts. The question will be what new schools and renovation projects are put on hold.

The board's facilities committee will meet at 9:30 a.m. in the board conference room, 3600 Wake Forest Road in Raleigh.

UPDATE

The list of projects won't be provided to the board until next Tuesday. Click here for the online story. 

Wake's new comparability effort had both some successes and some failures this school year.

The school board revised the assignment policy to bring in the idea of "comparability." The goal was to make schools in an area have similar demographics, even when it meant the unpopular notion of moving affluent areas into schools that have more low-income students.

Based on recently released data, some schools did see their percentages of low-income students go up to become more comparable to their neighbors.

Lawyers for Wake CARES have come out swinging against the school system and the N.C. Court of Appeals in their brief to the N.C. Supreme Court.

The brief defends Wake County Superior Court Judge Howard Manning Jr.'s decision requiring Wake to get parental consent for year-round schools. The brief also lays out reasons for contending that the appellate ruling was in error.

"The informed parental consent solution ultimately allowed the school system to preserve the bulk of its program of conversion to year round schools but also preserved rights of parents to control aspects of the education of their children," according to the brief. "It was a measured remedy to a complex problem, largely created by the Defendant—Appellees actions overestimating public support for their plan and not understanding the limits of their power."

The prospect of a 2009 bond issue is getting less likely as the financial news gets grimmer each day.

As noted in today's article by Michael Biesecker, county commissioners and school board members got a whole lot of bad economic news at Wednesday's joint meeting. The county's inability to sell $370 million worth of school bonds makes another big 2009 bond issue a hard sell.

“There’s no market for long-term debt, at least not under terms we’re willing to pay,” said County Manager David Cooke in the article.

West Cary Middle School's sixth-graders won't be spending next school year at Alston Ridge Elementary School.

Chuck Dulaney, assistant superintendent for growth and planning, said they're shelving plans to use Alston Ridge as a sixth-grade center in 2009. He said the school won't be ready next school year due to delays completing a sewer line and a retaining wall.

Alston Ridge will just open in 2010-11 as an elementary school. Its opening will make it possible for Green Hope Elementary to unconvert that year.

The school board has found where it wants to build another high school in Cary.

The school board agreed Tuesday to pay nearly $8.9 million for 88 acres near Roberts and Green Level Church roads in southwest Cary. The average price, paid out to three different property owners, is $100,695 per acre.

If county commissioners sign off on the deal and money can be found in the next bond issue, the school would open in 2012.

On a fluffier note, microwave popcorn and school board meetings don't mix.

Yesterday's school board discussion of whether to convert Leesville Road Middle School to a year-round calendar was delayed due to fire alarms going off at the administration building. School board members were forced to evacuate to the parking lot as the Raleigh Fire Department responded.

According to school officials, the source for the scare was a burned bag of microwave popcorn.