Wake School Board Considering New Middle School Design

RALEIGH, N.C. — Wake County Board of Education members are considering a new middle school design that would combine auditorium and cafeteria space.

One of the major cost savings recommendations from the Citizen’s Facility Advisory Committee, or CFAC, was to reduce the area for eating and meeting.

CFAC suggested either a “cafetorium” in middle schools or a small theater that can be expanded by opening it to the cafeteria with pullout bleachers for seating.

At Wednesday’s Facilities Committee Meeting, staff presented the school board with a model for a middle school cafetorium.

Under the new design, the stage and support spaces would remain unchanged from the current middle school design. The biggest change would be to the seating area, which would double as dining space and an auditorium and be acoustically designed for middle school performances.

Overall, the design would still have a cafeteria and stage, but the two spaces would be reconfigured in order to create a shared common area for multi-use, officials said.

The school system currently uses cafetorium designs for new elementary schools. By utilizing them in middle school designs, the system would save an additional $300,000 and have a net savings of 2,000-square-feet per school, officials said.