The virtual charter school company that launched an unsuccessful bid to open up an online-based school in North Carolina has been having a rough time in other states.

Cyber (also called online or virtual) schools allow students to take their entire school caseload through their home computer, and the for-profit K12, Inc. has a large chunk of the national market.

K12 officials made reference to their recent troubles this in an earnings call it had today with investors. (K12, Inc. is publicly traded on Wall Street, NYSE: LRN.)

“As the industry leader, K12 often takes the brunt of assaults for online education as our integrity and our effectiveness is sometimes questioned,” said Nathanial Alonzo Roberts, a chairman of the board’s audit committee. “This is to be expected.”

The company also settled an investors lawsuit for $6.75 million that accused company officials of making misleading statements about the academic successes of the schools.

( A transcript of today’s earning call is available here from SeekingAlpha, an investors’ website.)

In Virginia, home to K12′s headquarters, the small school district that hosted the statewide online school plans to drop its affiliation with K12, Inc., according to the Washington Post.

The split would effectively shut down the statewide cyber school, the oldest virtual school in the state that enrolls an estimated 350 students. The school board in Carroll County, a rural area on North Carolina’s border near Mt. Airy, voted to end its affiliation with K12 in mid-April, in part because the oversight was burdensome for a small school district that only had five students in Carroll County enrolled in the program.

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Raleigh Democrat Deborah Ross is leaving the legislature for a job with the Triangle Transit.

Ross, a Wake Democrat and attorney, is in her sixth term in the state House of Representatives and had spoken out against many of the initiatives in the Republican-led legislatures in recent years. Her new position will be as general counsel for Triangle Transit, the public transportation organization for the Triangle area.

Rep. Deborah Ross

Triangle Transit announced her hiring Wednesday morning in a press release. She will be making $165,000 a year at the public agency.

“This is one of those opportunities that doesn’t come up very often,” Ross said in a phone interview. “Transit is one of the issues that I’ve been 100 percent committed to.”

Grier Martin, a former legislator, had stepped aside when he and Ross were redistricted into the same seat. Ross, who said she plans on staying on until Wake Democrats find a replacement to serve out her term, said she would support Martin taking over the seat “150 percent.”

Instead of engaging in a primary election battle for the seat in 2012, Martin decided not to run. He criticized the redistricting and double-bunking at the time, saying it was part of a larger pattern to target female legislators.

“In targeting female legislators, in particular, they’ve hit a new low,” Martin said in a statement last February, according to a post from Raleigh’s Independent Weekly.  “And, they’ve tried to make me part of that plan by double-bunking me with Rep. Ross.”

Ross’s resignation as she and her fellow Democrats find themselves in the legislature with little say or sway over pending legislation, with a Republican super majority making most of the calls on Jones Street.

It’s a sharp reversal to the Democratic-controlled legislature that Ross encountered when she first took office.

“Things are very different now,” Ross said about the present-day legislature. “Some of the things I’ll miss, I already miss.”

Martin, an attorney by trade and lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, said that he’s looking forward to returning to the legislature, provided he’s selected to fill out Ross’s term.

“I’ve got some big shoes to fill,” he said. “There’s work that needs to be done.”

Of course, Ross’s departure from the General Assembly will not be the only significant move coming in 2014. The Charlotte Observer has this story today on state Rep. Ruth Samuelson, a Mecklenburg Republican, thought to be on the short list for the House Speaker’s job.

Speaker Thom Tillis has already announced he won’t seek any more terms in the state legislature with speculation that he could make a bid to challenge U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan for her seat in 2014.

(Note: This post has changed from the original to include additional information about Ross’ salary and comments from Grier Martin.)

Court documents filed this week indicate that former state Rep. Stephen LaRoque will defend himself against charges he stole from his federally-funded non-profits by saying he deserved the money.

“Mr. LaRoque was entitled to the funds he is charged with stealing, so he did not steal them,” wrote Joe Cheshire, LaRoque’s attorney, in a response filed Monday with the federal court seeking to have the prosecutor’s 70-plus “introduction” section of the indictment stricken from the record.

Attorney Joe Cheshire addresses media outside the federal courthouse last August after Stephen LaRoque’s first court appearance. Stephen LaRoque is standing on the left of Cheshire.

LaRoque, a Kinston Republican, resigned from his legislative seat last year, after a federal grand jury indicted him on charges from using the federal funds in the East Carolina Development Company and Piedmont Development Company to enrich himself. He had already been defeated in the Republican primary that spring by state Rep. John Bell.

The federal indictment accuses LaRoque of taking $300,000 in additional compensation from the non-profits, and using the money to buy jewelry for his wife, an ice-skating ring and replica Faberge eggs for his wife.

The federal probe appears to have began after the publication of a 2011 N.C. Policy Watch investigation “Public money, personal gains” that found LaRoque was paid generously while running the small non-profits, which were supposed to spur economic growth in rural areas by lending money to small businesses. LaRoque’s non-profits, which were controlled by a board made up of LaRoque’s immediate family members, also lent money to close associates of LaRoque’s, including two state lawmakers and his attorney.

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