More families would be able to stay at their current school next year under a revised student assignment plan proposed by the Wake County Public School System on Tuesday.
Four new schools are opening next year, along with a renovated — and now larger — Baucom Elementary School in Apex. That’s causing a lot of movement of neighborhoods in Wake’s fastest-growing areas, where many schools are already overcapacity and even closed off to new families.
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Frustrated families have started petitions, spoken at board meetings and called and emailed staff.
More than 1,503 comments on the assignment proposal were left on the district’s ThoughtExchange page, many of them concerned with proximity to their school they’re assigned to.
The changes proposed Tuesday are “pretty decent” but “not quite good enough,” said Kaitlyn Treder, a mom of three Olive Chapel Elementary students, who are proposed to move to Baucom Elementary next year, a couple of miles farther from their home than Olive Chapel. The change won’t benefit enough families in her neighborhood, who would still have to send their children to Baucom.
“They won't be able to go to the school that they live next to their entire lives,” Treder said.
On Tuesday, Office of Student Assignment Senior Director Susan Pullium told school board members that the district would be more generous in its “stability rules” that would allow more students proposed to be reassigned to apply to stay at their current school. It also added and subtracted neighborhoods from certain reassignments.
This the second draft of the assignment plan for the 2025-26 school year. The district will hold a public hearing Nov. 12 before voting on a final draft of the plan Nov. 26. People can find more information about the proposal on the district's website, including a link to provide feedback. The district has updated its proposal to also include feedback received and explanations for many decisions.
Stability rules expanding
The district made major changes to who can apply for a stability transfer — a type fo transfer that can allow a family to stay at their current school and that is automatically granted if applied for in a certain timeframe.
Officials are now proposing to allow all current students to stay at their current schools — just without busing — if their proposed reassignment is to a school that already exists and isn’t one fo the four new schools opening next year. Before, officials were proposing to only allow students who would be fourth or fifth graders next year to stay, along with their younger siblings. The proposed change would benefit more current students but not necessarily their siblings who aren’t in school yet. Only siblings who will be kindergarteners next year could stay.
Rising tenth graders reassigned to Felton Grove High School could apply to stay at their current school, but only under certain circumstances. They must currently be participating in Apex High’s Academy of Information Technology or Apex Friendship High’s Academy of Engineers. Because Felton Grove will take only ninth and tenth graders, juniors and seniors will be able to stay at their current school. If they have a sibling who will be in ninth or tenth grade next year, they can also stay at the current high school.
Officials made no changes for students who would be reassigned to a new school. Only rising fourth and fifth graders could apply for a stability transfer, along with their rising kindergarten through third grade siblings.
School board members Tuesday expressed concern for families who will have to change calendars and not qualify for a transfer or be unable to go without busing.
"It is a strain on our parents," Board Member Cheryl Caulfield said.
Board Vice Chairwoman Monika Johnson-Hostler said families have concerns ranging from being unable to afford track-out camp for a change to year-round to having their personal plans disrupted.
"This is not a good decision for the families that would be impacted," she said.
The proposed reassignment plan
Four new schools are prompting the move of a couple thousand students.
Rex Road Elementary School would receive students from Buckhorn Creek and Holly Grove elementary schools. Staff is recommending a multi-track year-round calendar, because no new elementary schools are scheduled to open soon in the high-growth area. It would only be about half full once it opens, but leaders expect it to fill up soon. Four other elementary schools would be affected through additional rearrangement of students intended to keep enrollment stable at each school: Herbert Akins, Holly Ridge, Holly Springs and Lincoln Heights.
Bowling Road Elementary School would receive students from Buckhorn Creek, Lincoln Heights, Herbert Akins, Fuquay-Varina and South Lakes elementary schools. Staff is also recommending this school be multi-track, year-round.
Pleasant Plains Elementary School would receive students from Scotts Ridge, Apex and Apex Friendship. Then Scotts Ridge would add students from Olive Chapel, to avoid losing too many students to Pleasant Plains. Staff is recommending a multi-track year-round calendar. On Tuesday, staff proposed some changes to which subdivisions would be assigned to Pleasant Plains: Depot 499 subdivision would be reassigned to Pleasant Plans, while portions of Bella Casa and Holland Farms subdivisions would go to Pleasant Plains instead of the originally proposed Scotts Ridge.
Felton Grove High School would take students from Apex, Apex Friendship and Holly Springs. Then portions of Apex Friendship High would move into Apex High.
Renovated schools:
- Fuquay-Varina Middle School is opening in a new location. It will add students from Holly Grove Middle.
- The renovated Baucom Elementary will be able to house 208 more students, allowing it to take on students from some more crowded schools: Salem and Olive Chapel. Salem would then be able to take students from Laurel Park. One Baucom neighborhood that is next to Penny Road’s district would be moved into Penny Road’s district.
Existing schools:
- A portion of Apex Friendship Middle School’s assignment zone that is located in the middle of Apex Middle School’s assignment zone will be reassigned to Apex Middle School’s assignment zone.
- Portions of Apex Middle and Holly Ridge Middle will move into the Lufkin Road Middle assignment zone.
- A portion of Oak Grove Elementary’s assignment zone would move to Powell Magnet Elementary.
- A portion of Dillard Drive Magnet Middle would move to Ligon Magnet Middle
- A portion of Centennial Magnet Middle would’ve into West Millbrook Magnet Middle
- A portion of Southeast Raleigh Magnet High would move into Millbrook Magnet High
Removed from the proposal:
- A portion of Carroll Magnet Middle would no longer move into Leesville Road Middle. Pullium said there wasn’t a consensus among residents about whether the proposal was good or bad, and neither school is overcrowded.
Reassignment in Apex
Some of the bigger changes proposed are in Treder’s area, but weren’t ultimately what Treder and others had asked for.
Treder’s fourth grader and two first-grade twins walk with their parents to Olive Chapel everyday, less than a mile away from their home. While they walk along swifter-moving Olive Chapel Road, they don’t have to cross it.
Ashley Downs neighborhood is 900 feet away from Olive Chapel Elementary, Treder said.
“Pearson Farms is about half a mile away from Olive Chapel,” she said. “So we are trying to keep our community together, keep our kids together.”
Ken Butler said his family bought their home with the intent of sending their children to Olive Chapel.
Butler is a father of two kids, including one who would not be able to apply to stay at Olive Chapel because they are too young.
“It was one of the driving factors that brought us here, specifically. I mean, we love it,” Butler said.
The proposed change undermines the stability of the neighborhood, he said, with kids going to different schools from one another.
But Olive Chapel Elementary is one of the most crowded schools in the district. If the district did nothing to reassign students next year, officials predict it would be 44% overcapacity next year.
After Tuesday’s meeting, Pullium said the challenge in the western part of the county is that so much growth Is happening toward the border, where new schools aren’t planned and that so many schools out there are already overcapacity. While Ashley Downs and Pearson Farms neighborhoods are close to Olive Chapel Elementary, they are closer to Baucom than other neighborhoods zoned for Olive Chapel. Now that Baucom has more capacity, more neighborhoods need to be moved into it, Pullium said.
She noted that Olive Chapel has well more than 1,000 students, many of them supported by “aging” trailers.
The school system is considering the future of a small tract in Cary, several miles away, that is assigned to Olive Chapel, Pullium said. It’s an assignment that dates back years to when the county was more aggressive about busing students across farther distances to increase diversity and academic achievement. But that “node” isn’t big enough to significantly reduce Olive Chapel’s population, she said,
The change from Olive Chapel to Baucom would also require families to shift from a year-round calendar to a traditional August to June calendar. At th seem time, those families would be assigned to a year-round middle school — a misalignment that many parents raised concerns about.
The proposal does offer a traditional calendar middle school that new Baucom Elementary families could apply to, if they didn’t want their elementary-aged child and their middle school-aged child going to school on different calendars.
That would be Apex Middle School next year, and the district will consider a longer-term application school at a later time.