Wake County puts enrollment caps on 19 schools for 2020. One more may be added.
Nineteen Wake County schools, mostly elementary schools, will be placed under enrollment limits that will prevent some newly arriving families from attending them.
The Wake County school board approved Tuesday putting enrollment caps on 17 elementary schools, one middle school and one high school for the 2020-21 school year. But the board held off on deciding whether to continue the cap at Panther Creek High School in Cary, leaving that decision for a future date.
School leaders say a combination of factors, including growth and the state reducing K-3 class sizes, mean they have to act now to address crowding at the capped schools.
Enrollment caps are a way for the school system to try to shift the burden of dealing with crowded schools onto newcomers, instead of reassigning existing students out of schools. When a capped school reaches an enrollment limit, families who aren’t living in the attendance area by a certain date are transported to another more distant school that has space.
“We’re having to deal with a capping strategy because we have inadequate facilities for all the people who choose to come to the Wake County Public School System,” said school board member Bill Fletcher.
Fletcher said it’s not a preferred strategy, but it’s a necessary one.
New enrollment caps will be placed on five elementary schools: Abbotts Creek, Alston Ridge, Beaverdam, Lead Mine and White Oak. The cap at White Oak would only cover kindergarten and first grade.
Administrators say they need to start the caps now and not wait until next school year. But administrators said they would try to accommodate any families affected this school year.
Wake is continuing the caps at 12 elementary schools: Cedar Fork, Combs, Highcroft, Holly Grove, Hortons Creek, Mills Park, Oakview, Olive Chapel, Rogers Lane, Scotts Ridge, Sycamore Creek and Weatherstone.
The cap will also be extended at Mills Park Middle School and Heritage High School.
Debating the cap at Panther Creek High School
Enrollment caps are being discontinued this fall at six elementary schools: Baileywick, Fuquay-Varina, Harris Creek, Vance, Willow Springs and Yates Mill.
School system staff had recommended last month leaving the cap at Panther Creek in place but changed the recommendation Tuesday. Board members decided to approve the other schools while holding off on Panther Creek.
“We need to keep that school at a reasonable enrollment,” said school board member Chris Heagarty.
Students who had been restricted to attend those schools because of caps now can attend.
More than 700 students are capped out at other schools, requiring the school district to run additional buses to send those children to school. It will cost $240,000 to run six more school buses to handle the new students who would be capped this fall.
K-3 class size reductions
Wake has to make the accommodations because the average K-3 class size in North Carolina is dropping. Wake is dealing with a maximum of 19 students in kindergarten and first-grade classes this fall and 20 students in second- and third-grades.
Republican state lawmakers say the smaller K-3 class sizes will help improve academic performance. But school districts complain that it will be difficult finding the teachers and the classroom space to meet the smaller class sizes.
School officials said several of the schools are only being capped because of the class-size reductions.
Despite growth slowing down overall in the district, it’s still heavy in some areas of the county.
“Folks move to Wake County, and they don’t spread out across the whole county,” Fletcher said. “We have portions of the county that seem to collect more people than others, and those schools become overcrowded.”
This story was originally published February 4, 2020 at 8:10 PM.
