RALEIGH, N.C. — All active candidates for Wake County School board will meet in a forum at 7 p.m. today at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 2723 Clark Ave.

The Forum is sponsored by the following community organizations: The League of Women Voters of Wake County, the Junior League of Raleigh, the YWCA of the Greater Triangle, the Wake County PTA Council, and El Pueblo.

The Wake County Board of Education Candidates’ Forum will provide an opportunity for each candidate to address issues central to their campaign in their opening and closing statements.  Each candidate will be asked to respond to questions prepared by the sponsoring organizations.  Questions will cover a range of issues including:  policy, funding & budget, parental involvement, health & physical education and curriculum.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – North Carolina’s General Assembly holds a joint session to confirm Gov. Beverly Perdue’s three nominations to the state Board of Education.

The House and Senate get together Monday night to vote on whether to accept Wayne McDevitt, Patricia Willoughby and Reginald Kenan. McDevitt and Willoughby have been on the board since 2001. Reginald Kenan would become a new member of the state school board. He’s been on the Duplin County school board since 1989.

McDevitt was secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources Department under Gov. Jim Hunt. Willoughby was the state Superintendent of the Department of Public Instruction during 2004-05.

The governor appoints 11 of the 13 members of the board of education, which also includes the lieutenant governor and the state treasurer.

RALEIGH, N.C. — The pending resignation of Wake Board of Education Chair Rosa Gill means change will come sooner than expected on the Wake County School Board.

Today is Gill’s last school board meeting. She will serve the remainder of the term for North Carolina state Rep. Dan Blue.

Blue gave up his House seat when he was asked to fill the unexpired term of the late state Sen. Vernon Malone.

Gov. Bev Perdue still must appoint Gill, but under state law she has to take the Democratic Party’s choice because Blue is also a Democrat.

Gill defeated Bernard Allen II in the party’s voting.

The 65-year-old Gill is a former teacher, administrator with the Department of Motor Vehicles and chair of the Wake County Democratic Party. She has been on the Wake County School Board since 1999.

Gill anticipates being approved by the Governor within days.

School board policy is that a successor is appointed by the board to serve the remainder of the term, which ends in 2011. Gill said there are no official nominees yet, but she expects her successor to be like-minded.

Gill anticipates the board will name her successor by the end of July.

One name being mentioned is Bernard Allen Jr., a leader in the Wake Democratic Party. He also was a candidate for the House seat. Venita Peyton, a longtime Raleigh political activist and Republican, also has expressed an interest in the board post.Four school board seats already will be on the ballot in the fall. District 2 Representative Howard Tart is the only board member running for re-election. Lori Millberg, Eleanor Goettee, and Patti Head have all said they will not run again.

RALEIGH, N.C. — Deborah Prickett will be a candidate for Wake County School Board District 7 in the October 6th, 2009 election,she said Wednesday.

In a press release, Prickett said she hopes to change current policies regarding student assignments.

“[Policies] are ineffective patchwork attempts to solve complex challenges, and they simply are not working for too many Wake County students and their families,” she said. “We need to tap into the tremendous support network that communities can provide and create environments where students feel connected.  As it is, Wake County families and communities are fractured by repeated reassignments and conversion of schools to Mandatory Year Round (MYR) calendars incurring increased costs to operate our schools.  Most importantly, our school system is not providing students with the quality education they need to become part of a vibrant, growing community and economy.”

Some background information on Deborah Prickett:

Raleigh native, attended Wake County Public Schools
BA, North Carolina State University
MA, North Carolina Central University
26 years working in Wake County Public Schools and North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI)
Counselor, English and Language Arts Teacher
Currently employed by NCDPI as the Character Education Consultant working with Coordinators in all NC school districts
Member, National Character Education Partnership, State Collaborative for Children, Families and Youth
Member, Governor’s Child Abuse and Neglect sub-committee
Member, Governor’s Focus Group on Returning Combat Veterans and their Families

The North Carolina Heroes Fund names Former Governor’s Jim Martin and Jim Hunt as Chairs of its Statewide Advisory Board.  In doing so, both gentlemen join Senator Richard Burr (R ), Congressman Bob Etheridge ( D-NC 2nd), Congressman Walter Jones (R – NC 3rd), Congressman Mike McIntyre (D – NC 7th), Congresswoman Sue Myrick (R- NC 9th) and the Honorable Robin Hayes in showing bipartisan support for North Carolina’s Military men and women.

The North Carolina Heroes Fund is a 501 ( C) (3) charitable organization dedicated to serving North Carolina’s military men and women who have served our county in harms way.  The Fund’s focus is on North Carolina’s men and women and their families who are currently serving or have recently served in the United States Armed Forces and are enduring hardships.  In addition to hardship grants, the North Carolina Heroes Fund is assisting the dependents of North Carolina’s military families with continued education expenses.

Governor James “Jim” G. Martin served as North Carolina’s Governor for two terms from 1985-1993.  Prior to serving as North Carolina’s 70th Governor, Martin served six terms as a member of U.S. Congress for the 9th District in North Carolina. He was a member of the House Ways and Means Committee for 10 years and chaired the House Republican Research Committee.  During his time in Congress, he became the first elected official to receive the Charles Lathrop Parsons Award, which is given by the American Chemical Society for outstanding public service by an American chemist.

Governor Martin is currently employed with McGuire Woods Consulting as a Senior Advisor, specializing in State and Federal Government Relations.  He is lending his expertise as part of the North Carolina government relations practice, and assists clients with legislative strategies, business initiatives and health care related matters.

Governor Martin was employed as a Corporate Vice President of Carolinas HealthCare System in Charlotte (1993-2008). In that capacity he was responsible for heading the System’s research and federal relations efforts.

Martin began his career as an educator, earning a Ph.D. in chemistry from Princeton University and later teaching chemistry at his alma mater, Davidson College. During that time, he also served for three terms as a Mecklenburg County Commissioner.

Governor James “Jim” B. Hunt  Jim Hunt is a nationally recognized leader in education and has led North Carolina through twenty years of dramatic economic change. Serving a historic four terms as Governor, he has been at the forefront of education reform in his state and in the nation. The Rand Corporation reports that North Carolina public schools improved test scores more than any other state in the 1990s.

He has particularly focused on early childhood development and improving the quality of teaching in America. His Smart Start program is a nonprofit, public-private partnership rooted in each of the state’s one hundred counties providing quality child care, health care, and family support for each child. It is funded primarily by the state but is also supported heavily by private corporations and individuals. Smart Start has been visited and studied by early childhood leaders from all fifty states and many foreign countries. It received the prestigious Innovations in American Government Award from the Ford Foundation and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Admitted to the North Carolina Bar in 1966, Governor Hunt currently is a member in the law firm of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, PLLC, in Raleigh. He and his wife, Carolyn, live on their beef cattle farm in Eastern North Carolina, located on land that has been in his family since the county was formed. The Hunts raise purebred Simmental beef cattle that have won state bull tests and received both Grand Champion and Reserve Grand Champion designations at the North Carolina State Fair. The Hunts have four children and ten grandchildren.

We are pleased to welcome Governor’s Martin and Hunt to our statewide advisory board.  Governor’s Martin and Hunt bring strong leadership skills and understanding of military issues that will aid in furthering the Fund’s mission.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – Lawmakers elected two failed candidates in last year’s race for state treasurer for seats on the University of North Carolina Board of Governors.

State Democratic Party chairman David Young of Asheville, Republican Bill Daughtridge of Rocky Mount, and six others were elected Wednesday to eight House appointments to the board that oversees the state’s 16 public universities. Three others were in the contest, including Willis Whichard of Chapel Hill, a former state Supreme Court judge and former dean of the Campbell University law school.

The Senate elected eight nominees last week.

Daughtridge was in the state House for six years before the Republican ran last year for treasurer, a race won by Democrat Janet Cowell.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Will changes atop the state public schools make clear who’s in charge, or simply rearrange the chairs and leave superintendent June Atkinson the only one sitting?

Gov. Beverly Perdue’s decision to splice administrative and policy duties into one job with her choice to head the Department of Public Instruction is the latest swing in a decades-old tug of war over leadership.

The Legislature and the State Board of Education have given and taken away power from the board and superintendent of public instruction since the 1990s.
  
So Perdue, a former legislator and no stranger to the education battles, wants to avoid them early in her administration by asking that her choice to become State Board of Education chairman would also manage day-to-day operations.

Perdue said that if the board approves Cumberland County Schools superintendent Bill Harrison to the combined role of chief executive officer and board chairman, people will know who to praise – or blame – in reform efforts to reduce the dropout rate and to collaborate with higher education.

Since Harrison was chosen by Perdue, the governor will receive the ultimate grade.

MINNEAPOLIS – The state Canvassing Board was poised to certify the results of the recount in Minnesota’s grueling Senate election in Al Franken’s favor – but that doesn’t mean the race is definitely over.
 
The board was to meet Monday and was expected to declare which candidate received the most overall votes from nearly 3 million ballots cast. The latest numbers showed Franken, a Democrat, with a 225-vote lead over Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, who led Franken on election night.

But after the announcement, there will be a seven-day waiting period before an election certificate is completed. If any lawsuits are filed during that waiting period, certification is conditional until the issue is settled in court.

Lawyers for both campaigns have laid the groundwork for lawsuits through public comments and legal maneuvering. In recent weeks, as Franken clung to a small lead, Coleman’s lawyers promised a lawsuit over their claim that some ballots duplicated on election night wound up being counted twice in the recount.

The Coleman campaign also has a petition pending before the state Supreme Court to include 650 ballots that it says were improperly rejected but not forwarded by local officials to St. Paul for counting.

The court has not said when it would rule in that case.

New York Sen. Charles Schumer, who until recently was the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said Sunday that Franken had won the election.

“While there are still possible legal issues that will run their course, there is no longer any doubt who will be the next Senator from Minnesota,” Schumer said. “With the Senate set to begin meeting on Tuesday to address the important issues facing the nation, it is crucial that Minnesota’s seat not remain empty, and I hope this process will resolve itself as soon as possible.”

Sen. John Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, called Schumer’s comments premature and troubling, since Schumer is the new chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, which has jurisdiction over contested elections.

“Senator Schumer will likely play a key role in determining who ultimately assumes this Senate seat,” Cornyn said. “Pre-judging the outcome while litigation is still pending calls into question his ability to impartially preside over this matter when it comes before the Committee, as it most certainly will.”

Coleman’s term as senator officially expired Saturday.

Senate Republican leaders have said the chamber shouldn’t seat Franken until all legal matters are settled, even if that drags on for months.
 
Franken campaign spokesman Andy Barr said in an e-mail Sunday: “In terms of future planning, we’re taking it one step at a time. The next step is the canvass board’s meeting tomorrow, where we have every expectation they will declare that Al won the election.”