RALEIGH - Wake school administrators will release the second-largest student reassignment proposal in the district's history today, the system official in charge of growth and planning said.

Administrators will not release final numbers until 5 p.m., but the total will be fewer than the 11,495 students they initially recommended moving last year, said Chuck Dulaney, assistant superintendent for growth and planning. The third-largest proposal, in 2004, would have moved 8,388 students.

School officials say large reassignments will be the norm in future years due to record growth. As many as 8,000 new students are expected in 2007, and 32,000 more are predicted to enroll by 2010.

"Our overriding problem is finding enough classrooms," Dulaney said.

Wake annually reassigns students to fill new schools, ease crowding at existing schools and keep schools diverse. The plan ultimately adopted by the school board will likely be smaller than what administrators will propose. The reassignments proposed last year were pared to 9,307 students by the school board. The district has 128,000 students.

Many of the students in this year's plan would be reassigned to fill five new schools -- East Garner Elementary, North Forest Pines Elementary, Sanford Creek Elementary, East Cary Middle and Wendell Middle.

Forest Pines Elementary and Wakelon Elementary will get more students because they're moving from temporary modular buildings to larger, permanent schools.

No high schools are in the proposal. After having moved thousands of high school students this fall, Dulaney said the district will try to handle growth at that level with more modular classrooms and ninth-grade centers.

This year's plan is unique partly because it deals with converting 22 existing schools to year-round schedules beginning in July. The schools are switching to keep up with growth; a year-round calendar allows them to enroll more students and stagger their schedules over the course of a full year.

Much of the opposition to the reassignment plan is expected to come from families affected by the year-round conversions.

Dave Duncan, co-founder of Stop Mandatory Year-Round, a parents' group, said they're still hoping to stop the conversions from taking place. If necessary, he said, the group will lobby the county commissioners to withhold the money needed to pay for the conversions.

Tony Gurley, chairman of the board of commissioners, said he doesn't see a need to block the conversions. He pointed out that the school board will allow families to apply for seats in traditional-calendar schools.

"It looks like the school board is doing everything they can do to provide parents choices at this point," Gurley said. "I don't see any way to intercede."

Opposition is also expected from parents who previously chose to leave their assigned schools to voluntarily attend year-round schools. If their assigned schools are among those being converted, they're being required to return.

Many families at Turner Creek Elementary, a year-round school in Cary, expect they will be told to return to their base school.

One hundred parents attended a public hearing last week to request that all existing students and siblings entering kindergarten next year be allowed to stay.

"When we signed up for Turner Creek, our intention was to stay there K-5," said Lynn Long, a leader of Turner Creek Parents United, a group fighting the changes. "That's what we still want to do."

Parents will have less time this year to make comments on the plan. Administrators want the school board to approve the plan Feb. 6 instead of the usual March or April adoption date.

Dulaney said school officials want the plan approved in February so parents will know their school assignments when they apply for magnet schools or year-round or traditional-calendar options.

But Dulaney stressed that administrators want public input on the reassignment plan. Comments will be taken until Jan. 2 before a revised plan is presented to the school board on Jan. 9.