In the meantime, steer clear of those who tell you they know what's about to happen in Wake County's schools. That's because voters -- at least those outside the Beltline -- made it very clear what they didn't want. They've had enough of regular student reassignments with an eye toward diversity.

So in its place, the newly constituted school board will do ... something. But don't ask them yet. The script so far has not provided much detail in that regard.

There will be changes. How could there not be given the countless promises of fewer reassignments and more neighborhood schools? But the debate about diversity and reassignment overshadowed every other topic to the point that few people were listening to anything else. Ready or not, those other topics are about to roll onto the school board's agenda.

Student enrollment, for example, is expected to grow by roughly 10,000 during the next two years, even in a weak economy. Those students need seats. Parents want a more personal way to communicate with school leaders -- something more substantive than Web posts and large forums where statements are read and no one responds. That is a huge task in a district of 140,000 students.

Then there is the issue of the academic achievement. Roughly one in five students does not graduate. And courses are not challenging enough for thousands of additional students who easily exceed state and local standards.

Wake Education Partnership, where I now work after 21 years as an education reporter, operates under the tagline of "Promoting Excellent Public Schools For All."

Wake County has a good school system, but it does not yet meet that lofty goal.

There are schools throughout the world that have been redesigned to meet such standards.

They are running programs now that graduate students for a broad spectrum of jobs in a global economy. These are not educational experiments. They are real schools built for today's economic realities.

Critics of the new school board members often look at this list and throw up their hands, convinced a group of rookies will only make a mess of such complex and intertwined issues.

But how can we know that? All we really know is that no incoming board member supports the district's current approach to diversity.

The partnership is among those that support diversity efforts. Heavily backed by local businesses and individuals, the organization isn't going to back away from what it knows.

But it also isn't interested in waging proxy fights over other issues. While it might sound Pollyanna to some, a community's public schools are far too important for that.

So the business community, as well as other groups, will undoubtedly reach out to the new board as it maps a course through the thicket of issues it was just elected to address.

A board member's job should be so easy that neighborhood schools would be the only concern.

The involvement of Wake's business leaders and the willingness of parents to stick with their schools have made Wake an unusual place the past 30 years.

And it's worth noting that for at least the past 15 years, you could see this day coming.

So who knows what's next? No one.

But it is true what they say about public education.

In the end, a community gets the public schools it demands.