As news spread last night that D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee was resigning, presumptive Mayor-elect Vince Gray stood before hundreds of residents in a Ward 7 church talking about everything but the divisive education reformer. Very few people in the audience knew anything about the resignation — which broke in the middle of the town hall — and Gray stayed far away from it, even when an audience member hypothetically asked about the vetting process for a new Chancellor. As the town hall came to a close, Gray was whisked out of a back door, a security guard aggressively standing between him and Post reporter Mike DeBonis trying to query Gray on the resignation. It was the biggest story of the evening, and one closely associated with Gray’s repeated claims that “education reform and collaboration” are not mutually exclusive, but he was having nothing of it. Gray will be saying something today at 10:30 a.m., though, when he joins Mayor Adrian Fenty and Rhee for a press conference. Be sure to stay tuned; we’ll have a more thorough recap of the third of Gray’s eight town halls later today.