John Tedesco strikes an upward gaze.

The original post from 11/10:

I see that Under the Dome (N&0) is reporting that June Atkinson, the state Superintendent of Public Instruction and a Democrat, may not run for a third term in 2012. (Or she may.) The other night, some of the Democrats who packed into Kevin Hill’s victory party were saying that state Rep. Rick Glazier, a leading progressive from Fayetteville, is laying plans to run if Atkinson doesn’t. Then there was the story of how John Tedesco, whose hopes of being the next Wake school board chair were dashed by Hill’s victory, is telling people he plans to run for the Republican nomination for DPI Super.

Glazier versus Tedesco? Articulate supporter of public schools versus voluble tea-party critic of same? Save me a seat for that one.

[Update, 11/17: WRAL checks in with JT. He’s mulling … and now comes the N&O with same.]

I saw Tedesco the other day at the Wake schools magnet fair in Raleigh. He didn’t mention a DPI candidacy. (He has been speaking to conservative audiences all over NC.)

He did, however, say that he’s getting married soon, to a woman with a son, and was at the magnet fair not simply in his capacity as a school board member but in his prospective parental capacity also. John took some heat for using family-style pictures in his ’09 campaign, including one with a child on his shoulder, even though he was single. Now he’ll be a family man, he said. He was beaming.

Combined with the four wins by Democrats in October, Hill’s victory makes the 5-4 Republican school board majority go away as of the first week in December. The new board will have the five Democrats elected this year and the four Republicans, including Tedesco, who were elected in ’09.

Another of the Republican members, Chris Malone, has already announced his candidacy for a state House of Representatives seat in the 2012 elections.

I would think Malone will be under some pressure to resign from the board once he becomes an active candidate for the legislature. Ditto Tedesco if he launches a statewide run. They wouldn’t be required to step down, but the time demands of campaigning would seem to favor it. They would be required to do so if they won.

Should they leave the board, their replacements would be picked by the remaining board members, i.e., by a board dominated by Democrats. Thus, a 5-4 Democratic majority could soon become 6-3 or 7-2 … but in any event, the Republicans will be in the minority through 2015 at least.

Malone’s replacement in District 1 might well be Rita Rakestraw, a Knightdale Democrat who ran for the seat against him. In District 2, Tedesco ousted Horace Tart, a Republican who ran with Democratic backing. Not sure Tart would be picked — he might be — but the Democrats might well want to name a moderate Republican like Tart as a gesture to the good ol’ days of bipartisan, or nonpartisan, school boards.