which schools will they go? (Raleigh, Cary: real estate, house, buy)

[hug631]

is this correct? If I buy a home in Morrisville or Cary, would my children attend Cary schools? If I buy a home in Apex, would they go to Holly Springs or Apex schools? I get this impression when I read the "school information" that is posted on some real estate websites .

[RaleighRob]

This has been touched upon a few times here and there but let me put it to you this way: In NC, schools are run by counties, not cities.

What city your house is in, pretty much has nothing to do with which school your kids will go to. The county school system has divided up the county in "nodes" and assign those nodes to various schools. Sometimes its the closest to your home, sometimes it is not.

(Add the fact that this is a very rapidly growing area, and they often have to shift those nodes to different schools to make up the balance. Plus new schools are opening every year creating more shuffles.)

I've found many northerners who move here have to adjust to our governing structure somewhat. Here, counties have more powers/responsibilities than cities do. They run the schools, libraries, health departments, EMS, voting/election system, courts, jails, among other things. Cities basically run streets (except those owned by the state), sidewalks, police, fire, trash collection, and a few other things.

[A&N]

I've also got a few questions if anyone can help:

1) Does anyone know of a website that shows the boundaries for each elementary, middle, and high school? I've emailed the District and gotten no reply. I'd like to figure out for a given area what would be the assigned ES, MS, and HS. It would help with our house hunting effort, because the schools will have a huge influence on the home choice.

2) There is a great website that many here will probably be familiar with called greatschools.net. It shows a fairly low number of students per FTE (full-time equivalent) teacher (this was for schools in Cary). And yet I've noticed some comments here about the schools being overcrowded, etc. (I don't think the FTE statistic above has a direct correlation to class size). Is there a website that tracks or lists average class size for individual schools?

3) And lastly: We were trying to formulate a plan to let our son finish Kindergarten here in California, then make the move to Raleigh while school's out for the summer. Then I figured out that Wake County schools are on a year-round schedule. We don't know where we will buy a house yet, so of course the school is unknown as well. Are there certain deadlines to get your child enrolled and get a spot at the "local assigned" school, or would we be in danger of getting reassigned to another school if we didn't buy a house before the normal enrollment period?


Thanks,

A&N

[leighbhe]

Okay let me try and answer some of these questions:

As raleighrob said, just beccause you live in apex, doesn't necessarily mean apex schools. We lived in apex but paid cary tax, had cary trash and recycling, etc.

So, the website for wake county school is wcpss.net (wake county public school system), and they do have maps of the districts. They also have lists of the schools that will be year round in the fall.

If you are moving here and you are finishing out your school year in another state, I guess it depends on when you are actually moving, when you purchase your home. Once you purchase your home you can determine which school your son will attend, then do the application process at that time. If it is a year round school, there are different tracks for students to go on, some tracks start later than others (which ends up giving you about 6 weeks lag time). So, if you are slotted for a year round school and you apply for a certain track, you can certainly tell them your circumstances regarding moving and why you need one track over another.

The school system is used to kids moving in over the summer, at the end of the summer and they try and account for some of that. Their website really does have a tremendous amount of information regarding the schools, the calendar of events for registering, etc

And to answer the question about the school system and real estate agents, basically, because there are reassignments (seems like every year) putting specific schools down for specific areas simply is not possible. The responsibility of finding out the schools falls on the homeowner.

Hopefully this helps!
Leigh

[hug631]

any BOCES services for kids that are almost finishing schools? any short carrier school services that the county or state provides to high school kids? where can i find this info?