WCPSS will spend $5.6 million to repair 3 elementary schools deemed unsafe

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Three Wake County Public Schools have been deemed structurally unsafe by engineers.

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Tuesday, the Wake County School Board provided an update on the repairs for the first time since an emergency meeting last week.

“We believe that students were never under any danger of a building collapsing on them. But if we had not taken action and made the necessary repairs, then we certainly could’ve put students in that situation,” WCPSS Superintendent Robert Taylor said.

The repairs are expected to cost the district a total of $5.6 million.

The money will come out of the district’s roughly $22 million budget in their capital improvement plan.

Taylor said future projects will be put on hold because of this repair, and we are likely to learn which project during an August board meeting.

The schools were built in the early 90s, and what was built does not appear to match the code-approved blueprints.

“We could see where something was not done completely by those plans,” Taylor said.

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Taylor added that the school district does not know who the original contractor was at this time, pointing to a lack in a record system during the 90s.

“We’re not saying this was deliberate, but it certainly looks as though something like that could’ve happened,” Taylor said.

The district first noticed cracks and structural issues at Creech Road Elementary in 2024, but Taylor said the district marked it as normal aging of the building and soil moving.

In 2025, those cracks grew bigger.

After a review this year, the district looked at three other schools built from the same blueprint. Only one was deemed safe.

“Schools can last 100 years or more if constructed properly and you do the repairs and upgrades that are necessary to keep a building solid,” Taylor said.

The district has hired three separate contractors and is on a tight schedule to wrap up construction before the traditional school year begins on August 24.

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