Onslow County Schools have set up temporary classrooms at Coastal Elementary School to address overcrowding. A public information officer said the temporary fix helps create additional space where needed and avoids redrawing district lines.
The school system is the 11th largest in the state and has experienced rapid growth since 2020, when the Marine Special Operations closed its Southern California base and consolidated operations at Camp Lejeune.
Prior, the school district usually enrolled an additional 300 students each year, but in recent years that number has grown by two to three times, putting a strain on resources and available classrooms.
“A lot of our schools, especially the older ones, were not built with the kind of capacity that we’re needing right now,” Brent Anderson, OCS public information officer, told NPR last year. “We are able to bring in some temporary building at our sites.”
A year ago, OCS broke ground on the new Woodland Elementary, which will be at the site of the old Tabernacle School near Maysville.
Onslow schools is also expanding Northwoods Park Middle School in Jacksonville and has redistricted portions of Dixon High in Holly Ridge to redistribute students to schools that have space available.
