Wake adds more than 5,600 new students

It looks as if Wake has leapfrogged to 19th-biggest U.S. district. And more kids arrive every day

CARY -- If a room is big enough for a small, round table, chances are it's being used as classroom in a Wake County school.

Space is tight throughout the district, which is on track to become one of the nation's 20 largest school districts, according to enrollment figures released Monday.

More than 5,600 new students have enrolled in Wake schools this year, and the growth has forced principals to put more children into trailers and turn cafeterias, storage rooms and bathrooms into classrooms. The space crunch has been even more of a challenge for traditional-calendar schools, which have been forced to take in an additional 3,000 students who chose the traditional calendar over year-round schedules.

"At the start of the school year, we should be energized," said Pat Andrews, principal of Davis Drive Elementary School in Cary. "We're tired. We had to move at warp speed to get things ready."

According to Monday's totals, Wake has 133,715 students this school year. That's 5,643 more students than last year's official enrollment and 5,948 more students than the 10th day of classes last year. Wake uses 10th day attendance to determine whether schools will gain or lose teachers.

According to Monday's attendance, Wake is on track to move ahead of schools in San Diego and Prince George's County, a Maryland suburb of Washington, to become the nation's 19th-largest district, based on a comparison of Wake's enrollment to the other districts' projected enrollments.

Wake still could move up another spot to overtake Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools, which are projected to have 134,242 students this year.

The growing pains are not shared equally. A judge ruled in May that Wake can't make students attend year-round schools.

Most families chose to stay at year-round schools. But enough children switched that traditional-calendar schools are seeing overcrowding.

One, Davis Drive Elementary School, has 100 more students than officials projected in the spring because of the number of families who left year-round schools. With 1,035 students, Davis Drive is the second-largest elementary school in Wake County.

The cafeteria serves lunch now from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. -- just 15 minutes before classes are dismissed. Long carpool lines greet parents.

"It's hard to get here in the morning," said Medha Deshmukh, whose son, Nihar, is a second-grader at Davis Drive. "I can see the school from my house, but I'm lucky if it takes me a half hour to drive here."

Davis Drive had more than 1,100 students in previous years, but Andrews, the principal, said it's now tougher to cope with so many students because of new state mandates that limit class size.

Andrews said the school is using every available room to hold classes, including the library, cafeteria and storage closets. Rooms meant to hold special-education students are being used instead by much larger regular classes.

Andrews said special-ed enrollment in particular has grown faster than expected. Susan McDermott, a special-education teacher, had to put up a partition in her classroom so that another class can share the space.

"You've just got to make adjustments that will help children learn," McDermott said.

Andrews says she hopes to hire more teachers, but space is a problem. She said she may have to convert a bathroom into a special-ed classroom.

Andrews said the school will ask the state for waivers to lift the maximum class size in kindergarten through third grade from 24 to 26. She wants to hire teachers who will visit the classes daily to provide small-group instruction rather than have their own rooms.