I’m not including magnet and charter schools because they are often lottery based.
Contents
Other Cary School Links from BestCaryNeighborhoods.com
Cary High Schools vs Chapel Hill High Schools
2019-2020 New schools and the reassignment plan
Cary is in Wake County NC and is in the Wake County School District.
This means that Cary doesn’t have its own school system, it’s part of the much larger Raleigh/Wake County School System. Wake County is the 15th largest school district in the US. The schools located in Cary are rated very highly because the people living in the town are well educated and involved with the schools. The good schools are drawing people to Cary from all over the world and big new homes are being built on former pastures and woodland.
Overcrowded and capping
Overcrowding and capped schools
Even though new schools are constantly being built there is still over crowding and some of the schools in the most popular neighborhood areas have enrollment caps. New families moving in to these neighborhoods will be assigned to overflow schools. The overflow schools are good too, it’s just that some of the children in a neighborhood will go to a different school and there may be a longer bus ride.
Cary address, Apex school
When you think of Cary schools it may be a good idea to consider Apex, Morrisville and Holly Springs too because they share the same Wake County school district and you could have a Morrisville address and go to a school in Cary or be in Cary and go to a school with an Apex address. Some neighborhoods in Holly Springs go to Apex Friendship High. The new Green Level High will serve West Cary and parts of Apex.
NC School Report Cards
North Carolina ranks it schools on lots of different criteria like performance in different subject areas, teacher experience, graduation rates and college course completion, standardized test score performance and many others factors. The NC Report Cards site gives each school a letter grade and numerical score based on 80% performance and 20% on academic growth. You can select and compare schools on this site.
I like the site because it is based on information directly from North Carolina Public Schools and it is easy to directly compare schools and also see how the schools compare based on what is important to you. If it’s biology, math, arts, test scores
I have a page that gets into more detail about capped schools.
Call me if you want to talk about it. It’s confusing! 919-274-4365
Walk Zones
If a home is located within 1.5 miles of a school there is no bus transportation unless there is only an unsafe route for walking. A walk zone is good because the students living in one may not be redistricted. The 1.5 miles for school assignment is determined by the routing on Google Maps. Some homes may be within 1.5 miles through a path in the woods but longer by the road. Only the road route was used to determine assignment and bus routing. This was a big issue a couple of years ago when there was another assignment plan in place and neighborhood schools were full. That’s something to check on if you are buying a home for a particular school. Wake County is always changing assignment plans.
What the Teachers Think about their School
What are the best schools in Cary?
If you ask me the most sought after schools in Cary I would say it’s Green Hope Elementary, Davis Drive Middle School and Green Hope High. The schools in Cary are all good but this is the “word on the street”. That’s because the test scores are high and the elementary and high schools have never been capped. Davis Drive Middle was capped for a couple of years but in 2019 is not.
The school rankings change from year to year and if the scores are off by a few points it isn’t really significant. So, a school may be an A one year and a B the next.
The highest ranked schools (A rated) in the Cary/Apex/Holly Springs area by NC Public Schools
Elementary Schools
Middle schools
High Schools
Year around and traditional schools, sometimes you have a choice.
There are no guarantees with the schools. Every student is assigned to a base school based on their address. Here is a link to the address lookup tool. If your base school is capped you will have to go to an overflow school. Some middle and elementary schools in Cary are year around and some are traditional calendar. In a year around school vacation days are spread around in more equal segments throughout the year.
If you want a calendar option different from your base school you can apply for a different calendar option. There is a deadline to apply so if you move in the summer it will be too late to change. Whenever you apply there are no guarantees.
It’s confusing, I know!
I think the bottom line is that the schools in Cary are good, the attendance areas will change with new schools being built every year, and that is what happens when you live in a popular town with a great lifestyle. There really aren’t any bad areas of Cary and if you look on the map you will see the schools are quite close together so your kids will know other kids not just from school but sports and other activities after school.
