Police also charged Duncan Edward Hardee, 21, of Asheville, and Rakhee Shirish Vasthali, 20, of Fayetteville, with one count each of resisting, delaying or obstructing a law enforcement officer. They were transported to Wake County jail.
Chanters, sitting on the ground, repeatedly chanted "No resegregation in our town. Shut it down." After about 10 minutes of chanting, which included the group banging on the walls, school board chairman Ron Margiotta recessed the meeting to talk with the protesters.
Margiotta urged the crowd to show respect for the process and stop interrupting the meeting. The protesters shouted back that the board members weren't listening to them.
Margiotta said he was giving them one chance before the protesters proceeded to start a new chant of "Hey-hey, ho-ho, the Pope Foundation's got to go."
The chant is in reference to the accusations from diversity policy supporters that conservative businessman Art Pope is influencing the actions of the new board majority.
Police then proceeded to lift the protesters off the ground and remove them from the building. According the a spokesperson for Raleigh police, trespassing law would only kick in if the protesters were to return after their initial removal.
The Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP, joined the crowd outside, but was not one of those removed.
The protesters included some of the same people who were removed from a state legislative hearing earlier this month on college tuition. They were also among the same people who held a protest earlier this month at N.C. State University over Pope's funding of a speaker on campus.
At the meeting, 79 people have signed up to speak. School board chairman Ron Margiotta said he plans to limit public comment to an hour, which would mean only about 30 people can speak. However, he's decided to let a few more people speak.
Margiotta said he will let the remaining speakers go at the end of the meeting.
Controversy erupted early Tuesday afternoon over the location and public access to the Wake County School board meeting where the vote is to be taken.
Earlier today, school board chair Ron Margiotta turned down an offer from The News & Observer and television station WRAL to pay to move the meeting to a larger space downtown.
Tightened security and a requirement that members of the public have tickets to get into the meeting had led to protests from supporters of the diversity policy who accused the board of violating the state's open meetings law. The media organizations offered to relocate the meeting to the Fletcher Theatre at the Progress Energy complex downtown so that more members of the public could attend.
"No, it's impossible," Margiotta said minutes ago, citing the logistical difficulties of moving members, staff, technicians and members of the public.
Protecting the board
Security has been tightened for what's expected to be an emotional vote today by the Wake County school board to scrap the socioeconomic diversity policy in favor of neighborhood schools. Turnout is expected to be higher than for the board's meeting March 2, when there was a standing-room crowd, accusations of racism were hurled at the board and one speaker was nearly arrested.
In the main board room, administrators said, barriers will be erected around the dais where board members sit, to prevent the public from walking up to them. Debra Goldman, the board vice chairwoman, said the barriers will help protect confidential paperwork on members' desks.
There will be four law enforcement officers at the meeting, compared with two March 2. Police officers hadn't been at school board meetings before this month.
While opponents of the resolution are expected to turn out in large numbers today, supporters say the vote is only a formality, so they're not planning to compete.
"It's time for the community to accept the school board elections and the school board's vote," said Dallas Woodhouse, state director of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group that backs the board majority.
People began arriving as early as 8 a.m. to get one of the 153 tickets being distributed for the board meeting. The first tickets were distributed at 10 a.m. Security officers told people that they would have to surrender their ticket if they left the building. This angered people who had hoped to get their ticket, leave and then return when the meeting started at 3 p.m.
"This school system has some of the largest buildings in the county," said the Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP, who had arrived early to get a ticket. "They shouldn't be doing this to people. This is unfair to working people."
Security officials later relented and allowed the public to keep their ticket if they planned to leave and return for the afternoon meeting.
Protesting the security measures
A statewide coalition of civil rights organizations and advocates sent Margiotta a letter protesting the new security measures the board has taken in the aftermath of several raucous and heated meetings of the full board in recent months. In a letter dated today, the coalition says the board's security measures for meetings violates North Carolina's open meetings law that require official meetings of a public body to be open to the public, with any person entitled to attend such meetings.
The school board's new security measures, in force before this afternoon's meeting of the full board, include issuing tickets for admission to that meeting, limiting public comments to two minutes for each speaker and requiring early-arriving ticket holders to remain in the board building for hours to avoid forfeiting their tickets, the letter said. The letter also said the board provided minimal public notice of these policy changes "less than 24 hours prior to the beginning of these meetings, clearly in violation of the 48 hour good faith notice provision under state law."
The letter also said state law allows a public body to move meetings to an alternative site if news media representatives request larger accommodations "to facilitate news coverage."
"The Board has an obligation under the Open Meetings Law to take reasonable steps to attempt to make the meeting 'public' to everyone who wants to attend," the letter said. Those signing the coalition letter include: Julius Chambers, director of the UNC Center for Civil Rights; attorneys Al McSurely and Irv Joyner, on behalf of the state conference of the NAACP; and, Katy Parker, legal director for the ACLU of North Carolina.
"We have to be concerned about safety," said Chairman Ron Margiotta. "I'm not concerned about myself, but I have concerns for other board members and for members of the public. God forbid if someone couldn't get out if there's a fire."
The measures angered Yevonne Brannon, chairwoman of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, which backs the diversity policy. Brannon called them "atrocious" and an "embarrassment."
"The message is go away, stay away, we're not interested in hearing what you have to say," she said.
Tickets needed
Administrators said the measures announced late Monday were an attempt to "ensure a safe and orderly environment, as well as to comply with fire safety standards."
People who want a seat in the board room will need a ticket, though people who want to speak will be allowed in temporarily without a ticket. The 150 tickets will be distributed beginning about 10:30 a.m. for the 3 p.m. regular meeting, according to Michael Evans, a schools spokesman.
Evans said the Raleigh fire marshal raised concerns about people obstructing fire exits. He said the same concern is why only staff and media members will be allowed inside the small board conference room for today's budget work session and committee of the whole meeting, which take place before the regular meeting.
The public will be able to watch a video feed of the work sessions in the main board room.
No to a previous venue change
School board chairman Ron Margiotta turned back a suggestion earlier today that members move a work session today into a larger board meeting room so that members of the public could watch in person instead of on closed-circuit television.
"I move that we move," board member Anne McLaurin said before the formal beginning of the meeting. About 100 people had already gathered in the larger room.
But school board attorney Ann Majestic said Margiotta could make the decision on where to meet. "I'm the bad guy," Margiotta said.
A tough issue
The board is scheduled to give final approval to a resolution calling for the end of Wake's nationally recognized policy of trying to limit the percentage of low-income students at individual schools. The resolution calls for sending students to schools in their communities.
Supporters of the resolution argue that the diversity policy hid the poor performance of low-income students. Opponents argue that the resolution will lead to resegregation of schools.
In advance of the expected passage of the resolution, school administrators said today they had eliminated the use of socioeconomic diversity in filling nearly all the magnet schools this year.
In the absence of diversity, priority was given to applicants who had siblings in magnet schools or who were applying from crowded schools Previously, priority was also given to applicants from more affluent areas.
Only at the Wake Early College of Health and Science, where the goal is to attract prospective first-time college applicants, was diversity used to pick applicants.
Administrators say 4,589 of the 7,670 magnet applicants, or 60 percent,
were placed.
Traditionally half or less of magnet applicants are accepted.
Administrators warned that the board will need to take some action within the next month to adopt a voluntary desegregation plan to continue receiving federal magnet grants. The diversity policy had been used for previous applications.
The new plan could come in the form of a resolution pledging to keep schools desegregated.
On March 2, more than 100 signed up to speak. Speakers on both sides of the resolution were booed and jeered.
Joe Ciulla, a leader of the Wake Schools Community Alliance, which backs the school board majority, said both sides acted badly.
"I hope tomorrow's meeting will be better than the last," Ciulla said. "I'm worried that someone will do something drastic."
Budget questions
Wake County school board members today raised the issue of whether they should ask for more money from the county's board of commissioners this year, or stick with outgoing superintendent Del Burns' recommendation for a status quo budget.
Faced with possible cutbacks in everything from number of employees, computer maintenance and after-school activity buses, members including chairman Ron Margiotta asked whether members should increase their request to the county board, which has to sign off on the schools' budget. There was no immediate resolution of the issue.
We don't ask for everything, but we ask for some things, suggested member Dr. Anne McLaurin. I think that's what our job is as a school board.
Member John Tedesco said any decision to ask for additional funding should be preceded by hard decision-making by the school board.
It becomes critical that the board establish what our priorities are, Tedesco said.
Ousting Del Burns
The school board reaffirmed by a 5-4 vote their March 9 decision to put Superintendent Del Burns on paid administrative leave through his June 30 resignation date.
After meeting and voting in closed session on March 9, board members went back out in public to announce the decision on Burns. But Amanda Martin, an attorney representing the N&O and other media outlets, sent the district a letter saying the boards actions violated state law and demanded either a second vote in public or the release of the individual member votes from the closed session.
School board chairman Ron Margiotta said todays vote was meant to make things more transparent.
Margiotta, Chris Malone, Debra Goldman, Deborah Prickett and John Tedesco voted to put Burns on leave. Keith Sutton, Kevin Hill, Carolyn Morrison and Anne McLaurin voted no.
Burns had criticized the new board majoritys efforts to end the diversity policy in interviews with the media.
Also today, the board unanimously voted to authorize Margiotta to create a superintendent search committee.
Bell Schedule
The school board delayed a vote today on new schedules for this upcoming fall that would have started most elementary schools later to save to money.
Administrators said that changing school start and dismissal times would allow them to serve 2,000 more students this fall without having to purchase 24 additional buses. But board members asked staff to see if they could make any changes following parental complaints about elementary schools starting at 9:30 a.m.
The schedule calls for 71 of the 103 elementary schools to operate this fall from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. They currently run from 9:05 a.m. to 3:45 p.m.
