Bigger schools, fewer transfers

As Wake leaders wrestle with ways to pay for more schools, The N&O visits other fast-growing areas. Gwinnett County uses sales taxes and builds larger schools

GWINNETT COUNTY, GA. -- When voters in the Atlanta suburb of Gwinnett County rejected a school bond issue in the 1990s, school leaders decided to build their schools big. Not just big, but very big.

New high schools are built for 3,000 students, although they've been known to top 4,000 -- larger than some private colleges. Middle schools often exceed 2,000 kids. Elementary schools vary, but 1,200 students is common.

When the principal at Creekland Middle School greets visitors, there is a note of pride in her voice. "Welcome," she announces, "to the largest middle school in the country!" Creekland Middle enrolls 2,800.

Wake County voters also rejected a school bond issue in the 1990s, and school leaders have been struggling to build enough classrooms ever since. But Wake County's largest high school enrolls 2,500, and only one nine-month elementary tops 1,000.

Educators faced the same challenges in Gwinnett when they decided bigger would be better. In exchange for large schools, parents in Gwinnett get stability. The district, which adds about 7,000 students a year, no longer reassigns thousands of children every year. Parents typically know two or three years ahead of time whether their children are headed to a new high school. Every school is on the same traditional calendar with a full summer vacation.

"We moved here seven years ago from California," said Holly Collins, whose son attends Osborne Middle School near Interstate 85. "The first time somebody told me they had 1,200 kids in elementary school I thought, 'This is never going to work.'

"But when you break it down to classes of 20 kids or so, there are just more of them. I guess you get used to it."

It might be helpful to think of Gwinnett County as Wake County's older sister. The two aren't identical, but it's impossible to miss the similarities.

Transformed by two decades of growth, Gwinnett is a collection of huge subdivisions, old towns and retail plazas, with asphalt highways binding them all together. The county operates a school district of nearly 145,000 students. Like Wake, it's a place where developers build subdivisions faster than the county can put up schools.

Gwinnett didn't set out to become a district that builds its schools big. But in the 1980s, America's fascination with malls met the suburban sprawl of Atlanta, and the seeds of growth have been sprouting ever since.

Eventually, this Atlanta bedroom community started attracting its own major employers. As Gwinnett grew, voters approved one request after another to increase property taxes and build more schools.

But in 1990, the voters said no. The rejection surprised educators and prompted school leaders to ask in town meetings what people wanted. At the top of parents' lists was an end to annual reassignments. As in Wake County, it was common to shift thousands of students each year.

School officials responded with the idea of well-defined "school clusters" -- a system that dictates which elementary schools feed into which middle schools, which in turn feed the high schools.

Officials promised that clusters would be changed only when new high schools were built. Reassignments would keep students in their communities.

Since then, school officials haven't lost a vote when asking for more money to build schools.

Trailers, logistics

It was obvious to school planners that schools must be bigger if students were going to be reassigned less often. Beginning in 1997, they started building at a record pace. By 2002, they had built 947 classrooms spread across 25 additions and seven new schools. If a campus was short on land, the district built up by adding a second floor.