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Did You Know?
- WCPSS student population has doubled since 1985 and another 130,000 students are projected by the year 2025.
- WCPSS is the second largest school system in North Carolina and the 23rd largest district in the United States.
- Next year, the student population is expected to increase by 7,000 students. This is more than every man, woman and child currently residing within the Town of Knightdale.
- Each of the last three years has set a record for increased student enrollment, with 16,131 students added to the system since 2002.
- The school system is currently using more than 1,000 mobile/modular classrooms; this number will increase by at least 100 for the 2006 school year.
- One of every four elementary school students is in a temporary mobile/modular classroom.
- Relative to goals established by the school board, WCPSS is short 15,000 classroom seats today, and will need 58,000 seats by 2010 and 91,000 seats by 2015.
- Since 2000, more than 57,000 single-family housing permits have been issued in Wake County.
- In 2005 alone, Wake County, Raleigh or the school system were included in 27 “Best of” lists across the United States.
- WCPSS outperforms all of the other major school systems on virtually every indicator in North Carolina, at a local cost per student far below most of them.
- At $0.604, Wake County has the lowest property tax rate of the largest school districts in the state.
- It takes property taxes from two new homeowners to cover the cost of one new student.
- It takes only six to nine months to build the average house in Wake County. However, it takes 14 months to build an elementary school, 19 months for a middle school and 26 months for a high school.
- WCPSS has approximately 60 multi-story schools. Building multi-story schools requires less land, but they tend to cost more than single-story schools.
- This is a volatile time in the construction business. Due to an increased demand for labor and supplies, it now takes $21.7 million to build an 1,124-student capacity year-round elementary school set to open in July 2008, $41 million for a 1,663-student capacity year-round middle school set to open in July 2009, and $69.4 million for a 2,223-student capacity high school that will open in Jull 2009. (Costs do not include land.)
