Two things were clear at the end of the second meeting of the new Wake County School Board Tuesday night. It might not be so easy for the new majority to turn back the clock 50 years and resegregate the schools after all now that parents and the progressive community have awakened and realized what’s at stake.

And it seems more likely than ever that the election and the direction of the new board is being orchestrated from the outside, most likely by people who are committed to dismantling not only the economic diversity policy, but the basic structure of the entire Wake County School system.

Parents and students who support the current economic diversity policy packed the board room and dominated the public hearing with demands to leave the magnet schools alone and keep all the schools economically balanced. 

The testimony ranged from the personal, from students at diverse, magnet schools like Enloe High School, and the practical, pleas from business people who came to Raleigh to start their company because the schools are diverse and successful.

Parent Vicki Adamson said the board the school system is clearly at a crossroads and told them keep the economic diversity policy in place to pursue academic excellence for all not convenience for a few.

Parent Gary Dismukes told the board that its policies were “rooted in the same small-minded and racist polices of the Jim Crow South.”  That prompted a rebuke from Board Chair Ron Margiotta, who was either offended at the suggestion or it hit too close to home.

There were a handful of speakers who defended the boards push to end the diversity policy. One parent complained about having to send her kid to school in the “ghetto.”  Former state lawmaker and anti-government activist Russell Capps cited a poll from the right-wing Civitas Institute as evidence that the majority of the public supported the new direction.

Capps also appeared at a rally before the meeting held by the group Americans for the Prosperous, an event billed by the group as a “show of support” for the new board majority. It wasn’t much of a show with less than ten people holding signs and talking to reporters.

The ten included Capps, a staffer for the John Locke Foundation, and Apex Mayor Keith Weatherly, who works as paid staff member for House Minority Leader Paul Stam. Chris Farr, the grassroots coordinator for Americans for the Prosperous, presided over the mini rally.

The name Farr might sound familiar. She is the wife of attorney Thomas Farr, who the new majority has voted to hire to audit the board’s legal services and to provide advice and counsel. Chris Farr is not only a paid staffer for AFP, she is on the State Republican Executive Committee and listed as a North Carolina “tea party organizer.”

The majority defeated a common sense resolution to ask for bids for the additional legal help, so Farr will soon be on the public payroll.  That’s more than a little ironic, since supporters of the new board have complained that current board attorney Ann Majestic works in a law firm where one of the partners is a prominent Democrat who was asked to speak at a pro-diversity news conference before the school board election, though he did not appear.

The new majority has now handpicked an attorney (or had one hand-picked for them) who is not only active in Republican politics, but one whose wife who works for a right-wing advocacy group and was leading a rally to support ending the diversity policy.

The new majority was forced to abandon its efforts to put the brakes on year-round schools after questions were raised about school capacity and giving adequate notice to families about the changes.

The board is proceeding with a survey of parents about year-round schools, which were created to save money after Republicans balked a few years ago at supporting a bond issue large enough to build enough schools to avoid shifting some to a year-round calendar.

Though Tuesday’s meeting was not nearly as carefully orchestrated as the one two weeks ago, it’s still hard to believe the new board is operating on its own. It’s far more likely they’re getting help, if not direction from folks like businessman and Locke Foundation board member Bob Luddy, who was the largest individual campaign contributor to the new board members.

Luddy runs a private school and is an outspoken advocate of privatizing public education with vouchers. Margiotta is on the board of Luddy’s school and was a founding board member of the conservative Christian group Called2Action. And it’s not hard to see the influence of Art Pope and the groups he funds on the new board’s operations.

That makes it a little hard to hear the new majority’s assurances that they have the best interests of all the county’s students at heart. The folks who paid for their election and the folks they turn to for advice and legal help want to dismantle the schools, not improve them. 

Let’s hope the parents who packed the board meeting Tuesday understand that and keeping coming back.