Six Wesley Chapel-area schools will get new attendance boundaries for the 2026-27 school year as two nearby high schools top 130% capacity.

District redraws lines for six area schools

The district is redrawing lines for Wesley Chapel High, New River Elementary, Watergrass Elementary, Centennial Middle, Raymond B. Stewart Middle and Thomas E. Weightman Middle, according to Wesley Chapel Biz. Students already enrolled at those campuses can stay. New families moving into the area will be assigned under the updated boundaries.

Board's growth cap proposal now awaits county action

The rezoning follows the school board's Aug. 25 vote to recommend capping school crowding at 100% of capacity for all grade levels, a proposal we reported Sept. 4. That measure also splits the county from two concurrency zones into five. It now sits with the Pasco County Commission. No hearing date has been set.

Under the old thresholds, elementary and middle schools could run at 115% capacity and high schools at 105% before triggering limits on new development, according to the Tampa Bay Beacons. The 100% cap would mean more housing projects need to provide mitigation, such as donated land or payments toward new school capacity, before breaking ground.

Overcrowding numbers show the strain on high schools

The numbers show why. Wiregrass Ranch High is operating at roughly 143% of capacity. Wesley Chapel High sits at about 134%. The two campuses are over capacity by more than 1,200 students combined, and district planners say thousands more could arrive as approved housing is built out.

Cypress Creek High, which opened in 2017 to relieve crowding, already sits at roughly 96% capacity.

New medical magnet high school moved up two years

In response, the district has accelerated plans for at least one new high school campus, including a medical magnet school. That project, an estimated $80 million facility on a nearly 75-acre district-owned site off Meadow Pointe Boulevard, is targeted to open for the 2028-29 school year with room for about 1,300 students.

The timeline was moved up by roughly two years, according to Wesley Chapel Community. Funding comes primarily from impact fees charged on new residential construction, along with Penny for Pasco revenue and local property taxes. In 2025, the district secured a $500,000 planning grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies in partnership with AdventHealth.

Superintendent ties campus to region's health care job growth

Superintendent John Legg pointed to health care hiring in an Aug. 12 Tampa Bay 28 report. "We know that there's gonna be a need for 30,000 new medical jobs here in the North Tampa Bay community in the next 5 years, and we want our students here in Pasco County to be front of the line for those jobs," Legg said.

The magnet campus would sit near three Wesley Chapel-area hospitals, including AdventHealth Wesley Chapel. It would be free and open to any Pasco County student.

Planning director calls growth cap a "backstop," not a barrier

Planning Director Chris Williams told the Tampa Bay Beacons on Aug. 31 that the district views concurrency as a "backstop" rather than a barrier to development, and that the new approach would not change that view.

Board Chair Colleen Beaudoin signed the formal request to the county commission on Aug. 25, asking commissioners to update the Interlocal Agreement and Comprehensive Plan. The commission has not scheduled a hearing.