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Students at 15 Wake County schools will move to a different school, in a proposal approved by the school board 7-0 Tuesday evening. Board Member Cheryl Caulfield was absent.
The changes — affecting just under 1,500 students — are primarily recommended to fill up one new elementary school in the county’s growing southern area and to reduce overcrowding at some schools. The new student assignment plan also includes changes to which schools a student can apply to for a different calendar, with some choices proposed for elimination.
Families can look up whether they are affected by the changes here. Anyone affected has until Dec. 12 to apply for a stability transfer to stay at their current school, rather than being forced to move, though they’d likely forfeit bus transportation to school. That date could change based on a board vote.
People can look up the stability transfer rules here. About three-quarters of families affected would be eligible for a stability transfer, a higher share than in most years, to address parent concerns.
The changes would go into effect for the 2026-27 school year.
Some people in the southwest corner of the county have opposed the changes because of the relationships they say they’ve built at their current schools. Feedback to the school system was largely concerned with stability — with calendar, with community, and with commute.
The district didn’t propose any changes from its last draft, which included only one proposed change from the initial proposal.
Many families in southern, western and eastern Wake will be moved to new schools next year, including schools that operate on other calendars. Some families may be eligible to stay at their current school, but would have to forfeit bus transportation.
During a public hearing last month, several Apex residents asked to be “grandfathered in” at White Oak Elementary or Mills Park Middle, saying they and their children had already established relationships with teachers and other students. Some said it wasn’t practical to apply for stability to transfer to stay at White Oak because they need to use busing to get to school.
The district held three virtual information sessions and an in-person one at the new Hilltop Needmore Elementary School in Fuquay-Varina — the district’s only new school opening next year.
Overall, the changes would affect 24 schools. A handful of those schools wouldn’t lose any students but would gain them from other schools.
The goal is to affect as few families as possible while also addressing crowding needs, school system officials and school board members said. Reassignments used to be much bigger, years ago.
“The process is vastly improved from the way it used to be,” Board Member Lynn Edmonds said, while also noting that it’s still tough for families who must switch schools.
The changes
Families will be reassigned out of Ballentine, Banks Road and West Lake elementary schools to fill Hilltop Needmore Elementary in Fuquay-Varina. Hilltop Needmore would open as a multi-track year-round school in July 2026, meaning it would have four groups of students track in and out of the school at different times of the year — a tactic that increases a school’s capacity and that is often used in the district’s fastest-growing areas.
The reassignment for Hilltop Needmore will also have a trickle-down effect on other schools. Some students would move from Vance Elementary to fill the open seats at Banks Road Elementary. Students from Middle Creek Elementary would be moved into Oak Grove and West Lake elementary schools.
Other changes will reduce crowding.
Some students from Hebert Akins Road Middle and Dillard Drive Middle will move to West Lake Middle, primarily to reduce crowding at Herbert Akins Road. Dillard Drive Middle isn’t overcrowded, officials said, but some of its students’ elementary school siblings are on different calendars that would be more compatible with Herbert Akins Road Middle.
Some students from crowded Willow Spring High will move to Middle Creek High.
Several more changes will come to Apex and other western Wake schools.
Some students from Lufkin Road Middle and Salem Middle will move to Apex Middle, and some students will move from Apex Friendship High to Apex High — both moves are an effort to make the feeder pattern to high schools consistent for Baucom Elementary families.
Some students will move from the overcrowded White Oak Elementary — which is currently capped to new students — to Turner Creek Elementary.
Some students from overcrowded Mills Park Elementary will move to Salem Elementary.
A few eastern Wake schools are also affected.
Some students from crowded and growing Zebulon Magnet Elementary will move to Carver Elementary.
Some students from Zebulon Magnet Middle will move to Wendell Magnet Middle, an effort to make feeder patterns more consistent for the schools’ elementary counterparts.
Changing calendar options
The school system once again dropped transfer options for people who want to switch to a different calendar. Those transfers are often offered for people whose base school has a year-round calendar but who want a traditional calendar, or vice versa. Students who switch can sometimes be eligible for busing to the new school. The school board, at the request of the district, has been decreasing those options, in part because of busing and capacity challenges.
The changes approved Tuesday cut three options at two elementary schools — Abbotts Creek and Hodge Magnet. At the middle school level, it gives some students who are proposed to be moved to their calendar application option school the choice to apply to go back to the base school, under the calendar transfer option. For students at Dillard Driver Magnet and Herbert Akins Road who are proposed to be moved to West Lake, they would no longer have a calendar application option.
The plan also includes one new calendar application school for the White Oak Elementary families who could be reassigned to Turner Creek, giving them a traditional calendar option at Baucom. Families proposed to be reassigned to five other elementary schools would not have a calendar application option under the proposal.
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