Wake County OKs plan to move 1,450 students to different schools. What to know
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- Wake County will reassign about 1,450 students for 2026-27 to balance schools.
- Hilltop Needmore Elementary in Fuquay-Varina will absorb students from three schools.
- Seventy-four percent qualify for stability transfers if families waive bus service.
More than 1,450 Wake County students could attend different schools in 2026 under the school district’s newly approved reassignment plan.
The Wake County school board unanimously approved an reassignment plan on Tuesday that moves students for the 2026-27 school year. The final plan was virtually unchanged from the first draft presented in September, despite lobbying from some parents to keep their children at their current school.
School board members said the reassignments are needed to help fill new and under-enrolled schools and to ease crowding at over-enrolled schools.
“This is something we don’t like to do,” school board vice chair Tyler Swanson said. “But due to the growth that we’re seeing, development that is happening, this is what we have to do.”
Filling new Hilltop Needmore Elementary
Most of this year’s plan revolves around filling the new Hilltop Needmore Elementary School in Fuquay-Varina.. Hilltop will draw students from Ballentine, Banks Road and West Lake elementary schools.
The Hilltop moves will also trigger other “cascading” reassignments as Wake moves students among Middle Creek, Oak Grove and Vance elementary schools.
Overall, the plan will move students out of 16 schools (eight elementary schools, six middle schools and two high schools).
“This is sometimes a disruptive but necessary function that it put on all of us,” said school board chair Chris Heagarty. “I want to say that the plan does address overcrowding concerns that we’ve talked about throughout the year.”
The 1,450 students who could be moved represent less than 1% of the district’s enrollment, according to Susan Pullium, senior director of student assignment. She said 74% of those students are eligible for “stability transfers,” which allow them to stay at their current school if they give up school bus service.
This year’s plan is smaller in scope than the one approved last year that moved 3,500 students. During the height of Wake’s growth in the early 2000s, it wasn’t uncommon for 8,000 or more students to be moved a year.
Parents unsuccessfully lobby for changes
Some families have been trying to make changes since the plan was first unveiled two months ago.
The only change made since Sept. 2 doesn’t involve dropping the reassignment of any students. Instead, staff agreed to include Baucom Elementary School as a traditional-calendar application option for families who are proposed to be reassigned from White Oak Elementary to Turner Creek Elementary
At last month’s public hearing, several parents had urged Wake not to move their children from White Oak Elementary and Salem Middle to Turner Creek Elementary and West Lake Middle.
But student assignment staff stood by their recommendation Tuesday to move those neighborhoods.
“We can’t state it clearly enough,” Pullium told the board “White Oak Elementary and Mills Park Middle are some of our most crowded schools in the district.”
What’s next for families being moved
But Pullium said those families who want to stay at White Oak and Mills Park can take advantage of stability transfers that allow them to avoid being reassigned if they give up bus service.
The stability rules vary by school:
- Current students rising into grades 4-5 who are reassigned to Hilltop Needmore can stay if they provide their own transportation. In addition, their younger siblings can stay with them at their current school.
- Current students rising into grades 1-5 who are reassigned to an existing elementary school can stay without bus service at their current school. Their younger siblings who are entering kindergarten next year can stay with them.
- Current students rising into grades 7-8 who are reassigned to an existing middle school can stay without bus service at their current school. Their younger siblings who are entering sixth grade next year can stay with them.
- Current students rising into grades 10-12 who are reassigned to an existing high school can stay without bus service at their current school. Their younger siblings who will be rising freshmen next year can stay with them.
Wake says families who are eligible for stability transfers will be notified by the district. They can submit their requests, which will be automatically approved, from Nov. 25 to Dec. 12.
