Growth = New Schools = Reassignment
December 14, 2005 - "Life doesn't get any better," the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce website says about living in Wake County.
Thousands of families have agreed, moving to Wake County where they look for a new home. In the last six years, Wake County's local governments have issued more than 57,000 residential building permits.
The number of residential building permits has increased from 8,380 in 2000 to 10,967 in the first eleven months of 2005. Raleigh has issued 3,000 to 4,000 a year. Cary issued more than 800 in 2000, dropped to 466 in 2002 and jumped to 1,332 this year. Permits indicate residential construction is on the increase in Wake Forest, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina, Apex and Garner.
Residential building permits are issued by local governments. WCPSS does not have input into this permitting process. Local governments do make WCPSS aware of planned construction and the WCPSS Growth Management Department and Board of Education assign new neighborhoods to schools.
At the WCPSS Community Engagement Meetings, several people asked whether impact fees are charged to help governments meet the additional infrastructure such as schools that the community requires. At present there are neither state nor local laws that provide for impact fees in Wake County. It would take action by the NC General Assembly for Wake County to have the option of impact fees.
Growth and projections
The Wake County Planning Department provides WCPSS with student enrollment projections, seeking to anticipate the number of school aged-children who will attend public school. Enrollment projections help the county and school system in preparing school construction programs. The chart above describes enrollment projections for the PLAN 2000 school construction program and the number of students who were actually in school on the 20th day of the school year. There were new estimates for the PLAN 2004 school construction program that projected 114,526 students for 2005 and up to 123,747 in 2008.
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2000
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2001
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2002
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2003
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2004
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2005
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| Actual 20th-day school enrollment |
97,691
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101,432
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104,461
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108,969
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114,068
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120,504
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| PLAN 2000 projections (2001-2004) |
98,261
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101,745
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105,342
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108,822
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112,144
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| PLAN 2004 projections (2005-2008) |
114,526
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As you can see, the projections were close for 2001-2003, but were below the dramatic jump in enrollment of 5,099 in 2004 and 6,436 in 2005.
Growth and school construction
School construction seeks to keep pace with enrollment growth, but as this chart shows, enrollment growth is uneven. In 2004 and 2005, elementary and high school enrollment increased dramatically. Since 2000, WCPSS has enrolled an additional 10,304 elementary students, 5,645 middle school students and 9,537 high school students.
Since 2000, WCPSS has built 13 elementary schools, six middle schools and three high schools. School building capacity is the classroom space in permanent buildings. The school building capacity provided space for 7,440 students in these 13 elementary school, 6,207 in these six middle schools and 4,893 in these three high schools. WCPSS has created additional capacity at these schools (these are the schools that opened between 2000 and 2005) by adding a total of 99 mobile classrooms: 63 mobile units at elementary schools, 9 at middle schools and 27 at high schools. Thirty of these mobiles are being used at Wakefield High and Wakefield Middle. Another 20 are being used at Heritage and Jones Dairy year-round elementary schools.
The school building capacity and the additional mobiles at these schools have provided space for 8,936 elementary students, 6,113 middle school students and 5,191 high school students on the 20th-day of 2005. The need for additional space for 2005-06 resulted in the opening of three temporary modular elementary schools for 2005.
Wake County Planning Department estimates project another 7,000 students will enroll at WCPSS for 2006. WCPSS will open five year-round elementary schools and two high schools for 2006-07.
Enrollment growth requires the construction of new schools to provide space for students. Growth management proposals assign students to these new schools helping to populate the new schools and reduce crowding in existing schools.
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More on Projections: Projecting Student Enrollment from the Morning Announcements, August 2005 More on school construction: Finding The Right Mix: Building New Schools and Designating Schools as Year-Round from the Morning Announcements, December 2005 |
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