Administrators for the Wake County Public School System made a presentation to members of their board earlier this month on plans to tear down much of the existing school, which dates to 1958, and replace it with new, larger buildings.

If approved, the expansion would make Wake-Forest Rolesville one of what the system calls its "supersized" schools -- designed to accommodate more than 2,000 students.

The $52-million project would require the school be shut down for one year.

System staffers said it would make sense to do the demolition and construction work in 2009, when the new Heritage High School is expected to be finished. Upperclassmen and staff from Wake Forest-Rolesville would be assigned to the Heritage building, while mobile classrooms at the DuBois Center would house ninth-graders.

Wake Forest-Rolesville was not on the list for the $970 million in bonds approved by voters in November, but the system's administration suggested the school board expedite the project due to explosive residential growth in the area.

The acreage of the school's site in downtown Wake Forest is much smaller than what would now be secured for a new high school campus, giving designers the challenge of squeezing in the needed classroom space and required parking.

Because the school's bowled football stadium -- a relic from the relocation of Wake Forest University to Winston-Salem -- is much larger than a standard high school sports venue, the school system is required by local zoning requirements to provide hundreds of additional parking spaces.

To shoehorn in all the needed spots, the system plans to build a "table-top" parking deck over the existing lot on Rock Spring Road.