3 Wake charter schools recommended to open in 2020, others still under review

Three potential charter schools are one step closer to opening in Wake County. The North Carolina Charter Schools Advisory Board recommended this week that Doral Academy, Wendell Falls Charter Academy and North Raleigh Charter Academy are ready to open in 2020. The final decisions about the schools' future rests with the State Board of Education.

Posted 8:11 p.m. Feb 12, 2019 — Updated 11:02 p.m. Feb 12, 2019

Kelly Hinchcliffe

, WRAL education reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — Three potential charter schools are one step closer to opening in Wake County. The North Carolina Charter Schools Advisory Board recommended this week that Doral Academy, North Raleigh Charter Academy and Wendell Falls Charter Academy are ready to open in 2020. The final decisions about the schools' future rests with the State Board of Education.

The charter advisory board is still reviewing applications for several other charter schools that would like to open in Wake County in 2020, including two Chinese-focused schools – Carolina Experimental School and CE (Chinese English) Academy, which will do full interviews with the charter board next month.

NC 'quickly approaching' 200 charter schools

Doral Academy, which wants to host its school at 314 Grovemont Road in Raleigh, wants to focus on STEM education (science, technology, engineering and math). It plans to enroll 325 students in grades kindergarten through second grade in 2020. By 2026, it wants to enroll 1,225 students in grades K-8.

North Raleigh Charter Academy wants to recruit students from around the Wake Forest community, as well as bordering counties of Franklin and Granville. A site has already been identified for the school on Falcate Drive in Wake Forest. If approved, the school would enroll about 615 students in kindergarten through sixth grade its first year.

"The community of Wake Forest was chosen due to its current student-aged population and population growth rate, as well as the overcrowding and below-average performance of the public schools in the area," according to the school's application.

Wendell Falls Charter Academy wants to recruit students around the Wendell community and bordering Johnston County.

"The community of Wendell was chosen due to its population growth and lack of school choice in the area," according to the school's application. "A new, master-planned community called Wendell Falls is currently being built within Wendell. Once completed, Wendell Falls will encompass approximately 4,000 new homes and over 2 million square feet of commercial space. The developer has carved out a site specifically zoned for a school within Wendell Falls, and they have agreed to hold that site for WFCA until completion of the charter application process."

North Raleigh charter and Wendell Falls charter schools would replicate Cardinal Charter Academy in Cary and would be overseen by the same board and the same education management organization, Charter Schools USA.

The N.C. Charter Schools Advisory Board voted unanimously to approve Wendell Falls but split 6-4 to approve North Raleigh, with some members questioning the group's ability to open two new schools at once and how North Raleigh charter might fare in an area that already has several charter schools.

NC charter schools enrollment hits 100,000 for first time

Charters, which are publicly funded and privately run schools, have been booming in North Carolina with more than 109,000 students currently enrolled at 185 schools across the state. Last year, the state received 35 applications to open new charter schools. Twenty-two new charters are currently in a planning year/ready-to-open process.

Charters schools are "quickly approaching" a new milestone – opening the 200th school in the state, according to Dave Machado, director of North Carolina's Office of Charter Schools. Machado presented the latest charter schools annual report at the State Board of Education meeting last month. The report showed charter school enrollment in North Carolina has increased more than 200 percent in the past 10 years.

Meanwhile, traditional public schools, which still educate the vast majority of students in North Carolina, have continued to see their numbers drop.

The Wake County Public School System planned to enroll 1,900 new students this school year but only grew by 42 students, or roughly two classrooms. A Wake schools' spokeswoman attributed the slowdown to fewer children being born in Wake County, the aging of the county's population and parents having more school choices, including charter schools.

Charters first opened in North Carolina two decades ago. Since then, state funding for them has grown from about $16.5 million in 1997, when there were 34 schools, to more than $580 million last school year. Of the $8.93 billion in state funding for public education last school year, 6.5 percent was allotted to charter schools.

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