Legal fight over NC public schools over for now

    RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - The legal fight over who governs North Carolina’s public schools is over for now.
    Gov. Beverly Perdue’s office declined to appeal a trial court’s ruling that the State Board of Education violated the constitution by naming board Chairman Bill Harrison to also be chief executive of the schools.
    Perdue had wanted Harrison to run the Department of Public Instruction’s day-to-day operations. In July, Judge Robert Hobgood said that power rested with Superintendent June Atkinson.
    The deadline for the last of two possible appeals was in early September. Both Perdue’s office and the Attorney General’s Office said recently appeals had not been filed.
    The showdown was diffused when Harrison retired as chief executive officer at the end of August. He remains chairman.
   
    (Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)