Low enrollment prompts calendar change at 2 Wake middle schools

Two northern Wake County middle schools will switch from year-round to traditional calendar schools because their enrollments are too low, the school board decided Tuesday.

The effort is meant to right-size staffing and operations for the schools’ enrollment, rather than spending more for more months of operations. The change is expected to save $545,053 across both schools.

Pine Hollow Middle School in Raleigh and Rolesville Middle School are both currently multi-track year-round schools. That means they split their student bodies into four different groups who rotate in and out of the school throughout the year. Having multiple tracks year-round increases the capacity of schools, because only some of the students are filling up the school at any given time. They also become more expensive, because the school system must pay wages to workers for 12 months instead of 10 months.

But those schools don’t need the additional capacity anymore, school system officials told the school board.

Pine Hollow Middle is filling just 63.7% of its 1,248-student capacity, as a multi-track year-round school this year. Rolesville Middle is filling just 53.1% of its 1,664-student capacity. Capacity will shrink once the schools move to traditional calendars.

The change will go into effect for the 2025-26 school year. It will disrupt calendar alignment for some families who have elementary-age children on multi-track year-round calendars, though it will finally align calendars for other families whose elementary-age children attend a traditional calendar school.

School board members want to align middle school calendars with their elementary feeder schools — and feedback from parents at Pine Hollow and Rolesville indicate that’s a high priority — but that alignment hasn’t always happened.

Both middle schools had more students in recent years, and system officials said the downward trend is in part due to fewer students in their areas in those age groups and in part because middle school-aged students are going to other schools, such as charter or private schools. While growth is high in much of the county, necessitating multi-track year-round schools in the western half, it’s not as high in the northern parts.

Board Chairman Chris Heagarty said many of students leave for charter or private schools for middle school but transition back into the school system for high school.

Planning for enrollment has gotten tougher with the increase in other school options, said Glenn Carrozza, district assistant superintendent for school choice, planning and assignment.

Changing the schools to traditional calendars will also reduce costs for the school systems, because it will reduce the number of hours it needs to pay employees to work. It will also reduce the number of employees the county has to pay for to maintain certain specialty academic programs year-round, Carrozza said.