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Capped Schools in Cary! March 2021

Knowing your base school isn’t enough in Raleigh, Cary and Wake County

by Marianne Howell Wright

Updated April 17th 2021

Don’t buy a house in Wake County, NC for a school you like based on any information you get anywhere. Always check with the assigned base school and be prepared for changes. The good news is the schools are generally good and located close together. Use this info to help understand capping and redistricting knowing the school attendance areas can change.

Carpenter Elementary School is Capped

What is a base school?

A Wake County Public School base school is the school you are districted for based on your address.Use the Wake County Schools address lookup tool to find your base school.

What are capped schools and overflow schools?

Green Hope Cary School
Green Hope Elementary, Cary, has never been capped

When a base school is at or over enrollment capacity the school is capped. New people moving into the district are sent to an overflow school. Sometimes a capped school may have some openings so you don’t know for sure until you go to register at your base school.  The overflow school may not even be the same calendar option (year around or traditional) as the base school. The capping situation just keeps getting worse.  The State legislature reduced the number of students  in k-3 from 21 to 17. There isn’t room at many schools for the extra classes so more caps for 2021.

Capped Schools March 2021

One of the changes for 2021 that is upsetting for many moving into the area is the A/B rated schools, Apex Friendship Middle and Apex Friendship High School are now capped. The good news is the overflow schools, Apex Middle and Apex High School are good too. The overflow schools are 5-6 miles from the base schools.

Elementary Capped Schools

  • Mills Park (overflow White Oak) -3.8 miles
  • Holly Grove (overflow Holly Springs) -3.5 miles
  • Highcroft (overflow Turner Creek)-3.6 miles
  • Olive Chapel (overflow Salem)-4.5 miles
  • Hortons Creek (Alston Ridge) -1.6 miles
  • Scotts Ridge (Baucom and another TBD)-3 miles
  • Weatherstone (Reedy Creek)-3.7 miles
  • Fuquay-Varina (Buckhorn Creek) -6.6 miles
  • Sycamore Creek (Pleasant Grove)-7.8 miles
  • Oakview (Buckhorn Creek)-4.5 miles
  • Vance (Rand Road)-3.6 miles
  • Willow Springs (Rand Road)-11 miles
  • Rogers Lane (Knightdale)-6.3 miles
  • Yates Mill (Swift Creek)-1.4 miles
  • Harris Creek (River Bend)-4.2 miles
  • Baileywick (Lead Mine)-2 miles
  • Combs (Swift Creek)-3.9 miles
  • Cedar Fork (Reedy Creek)-6.8 miles
  • Northwoods (Cary Elementary) -1.4 miles

Middle Capped Schools

  • Apex Friendship (Apex Middle- 5 miles)
  • Mills Park (Alston Ridge)

High Schools Capped

  • Apex Friendship (Apex High-6 miles)
  •  Heritage
  • Panther Creek (Green Level, Green Hope)

Reassignment is different from capping

A school may be capped for new students moving into the area, Reassignment happens when a new school is built and attendance areas are changed to fill the new school.

Read Wake County Reassignment for 2020-2021, in a more detailed post

The assignment plans and capped schools change yearly as new schools are opened and existing schools become too full.

ake County is a county wide system and one of the largest school systems in the country.  The Triangle Area is growing fast and Wake County is keeping up with the growth by opening new schools. If you look at the construction schedule of schools opening you can see that there will be lots of changes coming as the new schools open.

New Green Level High in Cary
New Green Level High in Cary

Every year, as long as I have lived in the Triangle (a VERY long time),  the news is full of stories of parents protesting the latest assignment plan. Some neighborhoods have been reassigned to 10 different schools over the years. The thing to remember is that the schools in the Cary, Apex and Holly Springs areas are all good.

Wake County bases the reassignment plans on four factors, all weighted the same (they say).

  1. Student achievement.  Income and test score diversity included.
  2. Stability. Keeping as many kids in their same school.
  3. Operational efficiency. Overcrowded schools vs under enrolled schools.
  4. Proximity. This is hard when schools are just a few miles apart. If you look at the attendance maps(here is the sought after Green Hope High attendance map) you can see  that you can be across the street from a school and be assigned elsewhere.You can look up the assigned school by address here.

From the Revised-2020-2021-WCPSS-Final draft enrollment plan. The school board usually votes on capping around the 3rd week in January. It was late this year in March 2021.

  • Overflow schools can change so check with the school before you buy a house. No guarantees with Wake schools.