Wake County may only grow by 33 students this fall. It used to add thousands a year.
The Wake County school system used to grow by thousands of students a year, but it could add fewer than 40 new students this fall.
New long-term enrollment projections released Tuesday only have North Carolina’s largest school system adding 33 students this fall and 1,177 students by fall 2026, a far cry from the days of record growth.
School and county planners say the aging of the county population, fewer children being born and competition from charter schools, private schools and homeschooling are having an impact. But they also warn that it’s getting harder year-to-year to determine how much growth will occur, especially when parents may choose alternatives to the school district.
“Next year we could see negligible growth of less than 50 students,” said Wade Martin, assistant superintendent for school choice, planning and assignment. “But a 1% change could mean 1,500 students as well. These factors of what parental choices are going to be and what choices are going to be available reveal themselves day by day.”
Wake has tripled its enrollment since the 1980s, seeing years where it grew by as many as 7,500 new students. Wake grew by 1,436 students to 161,907 students this school year.
After Wake grew by only 42 students last school year, planners released new projections that were much lower than had been issued in past years. This year’s projections call for even less growth in the years ahead.
Wake County’s student enrollment could drop
The new projection only has Wake reaching 163,080 students in fall 2026. Enrollment is projected to drop in some years as growth yo-yos up and down. The last time Wake’s enrollment shrank was in 1982.
Wake’s slowdown comes as experts have been talking about a national baby bust, The Charlotte Observer previously reported. The nonprofit, education-focused Hechinger Report said in November 2018 that some projections indicate total public school enrollment could be down by 8.5% in the next decade.
In recent years, enrollment has dropped in North Carolina’s traditional public schools while increasing in charter schools.
Martin said that charter schools pose a particular challenge for the enrollment projections. Eight new charter schools could open this fall that impact Wake County, but it’s unclear how many will begin operation this year.
The competition has lowered Wake’s share of the county’s school-age population to 77.9% last school year. But Martin stressed how the school district still educates the “overwhelming majority”of students.
“Predicting growth in any given year is getting more and more difficult,” Martin said. “Predicting public schools will continue as the overwhelming choice, that will be easy.”
School leaders pointed to the potential benefits from growth slowing down, such as being able to reduce crowding at some schools and catch up on maintenance needs that were unmet.
One of the issues that school and county leaders will have to decide on this year is whether to put a school construction bond referendum on the ballot. Under state law, county leaders would have to wait until 2022 to put a bond on the ballot if it wasn’t done this year.
School leaders have argued how there are still many renovation needs at older schools in the district.
This story was originally published February 4, 2020 at 6:47 PM.
