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Hello, we are looking to relocate to Wake Forest but have many questions about schools. Seems you can't buy a house within a certain school zone and be certain your kids will go there because some are capped! This is concerning as we are not sure if we need to put any weight into moving into a certain school zone? I would appreciate all honest feedback about experiences with the schools in Wake Forest and how best to navigate this.
I know there are Private/charter school options but since both of our kids play sports I wasn't going to consider those options. I see that those schools likely won't have a school softball team, etc. as they don't seem to have 'sports' like the public high schools. Both of our kids play softball, baseball, basketball and volleyball. We currently live in Seattle where there is a heavy population with lots of sports options/travel teams to choose from in the area. Our kids are 10 and 12 and currently play on travel teams outside of school. I expect they will be playing for their high school teams in addition to an outside travel team as well. So any feedback from parents with kids that play these sports in the Raleigh area would be greatly appreciated also! I am not sure if I should put much weight on school sports since they will hopefully play on travel teams as well. It's just another factor we are considering in addition to the school scores.
I am looking at school scores in Wake Forest which seem concerning 4/10 for example on great schools. I believe they used to be higher a few years ago??! Why are the scores dropping? I see some schools in other areas near there such as Cary/Holly Springs/Raleigh seem to have better school scores (ex 8/10)? Perhaps I should re-think Wake Forest and consider Holly Springs/Cary? We are only looking at middle schools and high schools, our kids will be out of Elementary so that doesn't apply to us. Not sure if I am putting too much weight on the school scores. I would appreciate input from anyone living in this area who can help shed light on how the schools compare. For example Heritage High compared to Wake Forest High? Is Heritage really academically better than WF High? Why such a difference in scores? There are very few homes within the Heritage boundary but so many more in WF boundary which gives us better options. I would love to hear positive experiences from families that moved to WF and have been through these schools and hopefully had a great experience regardless of the scores I am seeing on great schools! We LOVE Wake Forest. But the school situation is concerning to me. HELP Please!!
I can't speak to WF specifically, but can speak to living in a high growth area in the Wake County school system.
If you want school stability, the most stability you will find in the Triangle is Chapel Hill/Carrboro schools, but nobody is ever immune from reassignments. The only way to guarantee it is to go private or charter, and charters are usually a lottery unless you're entering at kindergarten.
Wake Forest, Holly Springs, and Cary are all growing at absurd rates. Building in the Triangle is rampant, and since the school system is county-based versus town-based, there is no incentive for the towns to control growth. This quickly overcrowds schools and you end up with reassignments. Your best bet for stability out of those three would probably be the eastern side of Cary where it's already built-out, but you're not going to get schools that are perceived to be the best, and will have lower scores on sites like GreatSchools mainly because of socioeconomics. It's up to you to decide whether or not you think your child will get as quality of an education at a lower rated school - the Wake County school board will love to tell you to ignore test scores and sites like GreatSchools, and are actively trying to diversify the schools socioeconomically as we speak. This will ultimately lead to even more reassignments.
You have every right to be concerned, but since your kids are on the older side you're at least at less risk for multiple reassignments. The school board's general rule is that they won't re-assign more than once in three years (per school). We all know how quickly three years goes by.
Hello, we are looking to relocate to Wake Forest but have many questions about schools. Seems you can't buy a house within a certain school zone and be certain your kids will go there because some are capped! This is concerning as we are not sure if we need to put any weight into moving into a certain school zone? I would appreciate all honest feedback about experiences with the schools in Wake Forest and how best to navigate this.
I know there are Private/charter school options but since both of our kids play sports I wasn't going to consider those options. I see that those schools likely won't have a school softball team, etc. as they don't seem to have 'sports' like the public high schools. Both of our kids play softball, baseball, basketball and volleyball. We currently live in Seattle where there is a heavy population with lots of sports options/travel teams to choose from in the area. Our kids are 10 and 12 and currently play on travel teams outside of school. I expect they will be playing for their high school teams in addition to an outside travel team as well. So any feedback from parents with kids that play these sports in the Raleigh area would be greatly appreciated also! I am not sure if I should put much weight on school sports since they will hopefully play on travel teams as well. It's just another factor we are considering in addition to the school scores.
I am looking at school scores in Wake Forest which seem concerning 4/10 for example on great schools. I believe they used to be higher a few years ago??! Why are the scores dropping? I see some schools in other areas near there such as Cary/Holly Springs/Raleigh seem to have better school scores (ex 8/10)? Perhaps I should re-think Wake Forest and consider Holly Springs/Cary? We are only looking at middle schools and high schools, our kids will be out of Elementary so that doesn't apply to us. Not sure if I am putting too much weight on the school scores. I would appreciate input from anyone living in this area who can help shed light on how the schools compare. For example Heritage High compared to Wake Forest High? Is Heritage really academically better than WF High? Why such a difference in scores? There are very few homes within the Heritage boundary but so many more in WF boundary which gives us better options. I would love to hear positive experiences from families that moved to WF and have been through these schools and hopefully had a great experience regardless of the scores I am seeing on great schools! We LOVE Wake Forest. But the school situation is concerning to me. HELP Please!!
Wake Forest (Heritage) resident, but my kids are little, so I can't help with with first person experience of the MS/HS. Our neighbor's kids (one a freshman in college, the other a Sophomore in HS) have loved their experience with Heritage HS.
Heritage HS pulls largely from the Heritage Neighborhoods and then down to the new neighborhoods along Forestville Rd on down to 401, which is fairly homogeneous, socio-econmically speaking
Wake Forest HS pulls from the neighborhoods the are far more across the socio-economic spectrum; ranging from Traditions/Hasentree (Upper Middle Class-> Wealthy) to the areas between downtown and Flaherty Park heading toward Franklin Co, which were probably something in the 50s, but aren't so much anymore.
I would avoid a home assigned to Wakefield HS like the plague.
I will say you have hit on a favorite topic of the board. While the discussions tend to be more Cary focused, I would expect you'll get some replies here mentioning reassignments quite frequently.
ETA - When I say "pulls" I mean from the areas within town. All three schools also pull from areas outside of Wake Forest; I think each pulls from a section of Raleigh heading toward Mini-City, which I know nothing about other than the shopping plazas down there and is perceived as a section of Raleigh with higher than average crime.
What high schools are you looking at that don't have sports teams? Can't think of a private HS here that doesn't have them. Cardinal Gibbons won the Wells Fargo Cup last year.
Long story short - there are NO set "school zones". With middle and high school, you can "grandfather" at your current school for 8th grade (middle school) and 11th-12th for high school. Move here with the understanding that a reassignment is a distinct possibility and you won't be disappointed in whatever happens. Time and again when a reassignment happens we hear people saying "I bought in X neighborhood for Y school". Don't fall into that trap. Also know that your entire neighborhood is likely to be reassigned so your kids would not be alone.
Capping is a totally different animal. If a school is capped you go on a wait list. You need to think about being ok with one kid getting in to a school and not the other, because space opens up by grade level.
Please do not put any credence in Great Schools ratings. Their methods are horribly flawed and actually include a double diversity penalty in how they measure “equity†and “academic progress.†Test scores may be high overall in a school, and for a majority population either ethnically or socioeconomically, but if there is a notable delta for a sub-population, such as for the poor or an ethnic minority, GreatSchools hammers the score for the school overall. Because the catchment areas of many of these schools are designed to take in a diversity of kids, their scores (but not your kids) suffer. Areas in Western Wake County, which may have little to almost no socioeconomic diversity or much fewer black or Hispanic children see higher Great Schools scores, and even higher average school test scores, but this is meaningless for your own children’s scores and overall educational and social development. This is a known issue, and there is considerable reason to believe due to Great Schools funding sources, this is designed to steer children from public schools to private ones.
I can’t weigh in on the specific differences between schools in Wake Forest, but based on friends and colleagues they all offer excellent academic and athletic opportunities. In the area, though closer in to Raleigh is Ravenscroft, which is private ($$$), and offers these as well.
Wake Forest (Heritage) resident, but my kids are little, so I can't help with with first person experience of the MS/HS. Our neighbor's kids (one a freshman in college, the other a Sophomore in HS) have loved their experience with Heritage HS.
Heritage HS pulls largely from the Heritage Neighborhoods and then down to the new neighborhoods along Forestville Rd on down to 401, which is fairly homogeneous, socio-econmically speaking
Wake Forest HS pulls from the neighborhoods the are far more across the socio-economic spectrum; ranging from Traditions/Hasentree (Upper Middle Class-> Wealthy) to the areas between downtown and Flaherty Park heading toward Franklin Co, which were probably something in the 50s, but aren't so much anymore.
I would avoid a home assigned to Wakefield HS like the plague.
I will say you have hit on a favorite topic of the board. While the discussions tend to be more Cary focused, I would expect you'll get some replies here mentioning reassignments quite frequently.
ETA - When I say "pulls" I mean from the areas within town. All three schools also pull from areas outside of Wake Forest; I think each pulls from a section of Raleigh heading toward Mini-City, which I know nothing about other than the shopping plazas down there and is perceived as a section of Raleigh with higher than average crime.
Can I ask why you would advise avoiding Wakefield HS?
Can I ask why you would advise avoiding Wakefield HS?
Not really a scientific answer, but anecdotally all I hear from people in my social circle (many with HS aged kids) is how Wakefield has a ton of issues with gangs/cliques/violence and seems to have more than its fair share of drug related news, all the while the Principal openly claims neither occur at the school.
Granted, drugs and fights and all that can and do occur at every school, public or private, so perhaps unfair to hold that against Wakefield specifically. But me personally, I'd rather not send my kid to a school known around town as the gang/drug school (and I say this as someone who went to a super expensive Private school where any drug you could imagine was readily available on the other side of the wall).
As I am digging deeper I have more questions. Doesn't seem like any school within Wake County School District where we can buy x house to plan for y school?? Anyone here familiar with Holly Springs or Cary schools? Is it more likely that we can buy a house within a certain school zone and get into that school or do they have the same problems as Wake Forest seems to have? I've heard good things about Holly Springs but my concern is that it has the same problems that Wake Forest has as far as being too crowded and my kids will be reassigned to a different school. Since we have moved around a lot, what is most important to us is that once we move there, they can build friendships and stay in one school for Middle/High. The catch is with this area is that seems to be the big problem you can't avoid unless you go to charter schools which is frustrating!! I want the security of buying a house, going to the local school along with the neighbors and not be concerned about being reassigned every other year.
The reassignment problem is worse on the western side of Wake County. No, there is nowhere you can buy to be assured you will never be reassigned. We are on county schools here. On this latest round of reassignments I saw a lot comments similar to yours on the public forum WCPSS set up "we've moved around a lot so we chose this area for stability".
Now, if you buy a house and get reassigned, so will your neighbors. Some of them will be able to grandfather at current schools with older siblings. You're also not going to get reassigned every other year - at least not within a particular school level. There are people in Holly Springs who've been moved in the last 2 years at the elementary level and are now being moved at the high school level. BOE doesn't see this as an issue. You have to do decide how much of a chance you're willing to take.
As I am digging deeper I have more questions. Doesn't seem like any school within Wake County School District where we can buy x house to plan for y school?? Anyone here familiar with Holly Springs or Cary schools? Is it more likely that we can buy a house within a certain school zone and get into that school or do they have the same problems as Wake Forest seems to have? I've heard good things about Holly Springs but my concern is that it has the same problems that Wake Forest has as far as being too crowded and my kids will be reassigned to a different school. Since we have moved around a lot, what is most important to us is that once we move there, they can build friendships and stay in one school for Middle/High. The catch is with this area is that seems to be the big problem you can't avoid unless you go to charter schools which is frustrating!! I want the security of buying a house, going to the local school along with the neighbors and not be concerned about being reassigned every other year.
There are a lot of posters familiar with Cary, its schools and reassignments here, so I will let them weigh in on that aspect.
What I will say, as a WF resident, is in the three years we've been here, I haven't heard of anyone having their base school switched.
Now, there are some caveats/reasons potentially for this.
1. Cary is a massive, popular place. It is 4 times the size of Wake Forest (170K people compared to 40K). Cary is obviously "further along the reassignment life cycle" than Wake Forest is.
2. Wake Forest's last town management team was completely for "build build build, damn the consequences". In the last election (last month), any town manager running for re-election was booted out for this approach; I personally laugh at Ann Reeves; she told concerned citizens "that if you're so concerned about traffic, you should take public transit" (FYI, there is little to no public transit in Wake Forest). She came in dead last after sitting on the board for multiple terms.
3. Rumor has it that Rolesville (town next to Wake Forest) just approved a 900-1,000 home development near Jones Dairy Elementary. That will have a massive impact to anyone assigned to that school; as the southern/eastern portion of Heritage is (my daughter goes there).
4. County based school board is seemingly all about playing "move the kids around to counter homogeneous socioeconomic" situations....such is life when you have an area that wants county based schools because it means less taxes (I am on record here on CD stating I would happily pay twice what I pay today in property taxes if that meant we had our own school district and I could tell the rest of Wake Co to pound sand, but I am almost certainly in the minority on that). Honestly, if schools are your biggest want/need, I'd almost look at Chapel Hill/Carrboro.
In short, Wake Forest may have reassignment issues in it's future, but I haven't heard of any among our group of friends; who have kids ranging from K-11th grade. Cary seems (from what I read here) to have more issues with reassignment currently; but maybe they are towards the end of that cycle as they are a much, much bigger place.
Last edited by GVoR; 12-30-2019 at 02:37 PM..
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