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RALEIGH – The North Carolina NAACP is seeking face time with the Wake County Board of Education in a public setting, and now it’s circulating a petition to get it.

Organization leaders want 45 minutes with the board to voice their concerns about changing the diversity policy.

"How do they intend to end the current diversity program, which is a nationally recognized program, which has done tremendous work in educating our students, go to something they call neighborhood schools, move away from busing without ending up with pockets of extreme resegregation?" the Rev. William Barber, N.C. NAACP president, said.

Barber had previously asked for time during the board’s January meeting to make a presentation with the NAACP’s analysis and suggestions about the policy. Board Chair Ron Margiotta offered a private meeting with school system leaders after speaking with the superintendent about similar requests in the past.

"I thought that was very generous, and in fact, I was even more surprised that they turned that offer down in lieu of looking for a public forum for an opportunity for some pomp and circumstance," school board member John Tedesco said.

But Barber said the move is about transparency.

"We want to talk. We want it on the public record. We want to hear what's being said: not a 10 second sound bite, not something that's being twisted and turned," Barber said.

Tedesco said other groups who’ve wanted to address the board have used the public comment period during their regular meetings. He adds that accusations of segregation are distracting from the dialogue they should be having about bridging student achievement gaps.

"For too long as a community, we have focused on seeking out the lines that divide us, and it's time to start looking for the ties that bind us,” Tedesco said. “That's what we're trying to do at the board level, and we're trying to focus on what the real problem is.”