NC home-schooling drops to pre-pandemic totals. Some say that’s not the whole story.
The number of home-schoolers in North Carolina has dropped to pre-pandemic levels after having seen a COVID-19 fueled spike in growth.
New figures released in July by the state Division of Non-Public Education reported 94,514 home schools with a projected enrollment of 152,717 students in the 2022-23 school year. That’s comparable to the 94,863 home schools and 149,713 students reported in the 2019-20 school year.
Then amid concerns about COVID-19, the number of home schools shot up to 112,164 in the 2020-21 school year, serving 179,900 students. Interest level had been so high that the state’s website for registering home schools shut down briefly in 2020.
But DNPE has reported a drop in the number of home schools and enrollment for each of the past two years.
Making the numbers more accurate
Spencer Mason, law and policy director for North Carolinians for Home Education, doesn’t attribute the drop to less interest. Instead, he said it’s a reflection of DNPE making the records more accurate.
“They’re closing a lot of schools that should have been closed years ago,” Mason said in an interview Wednesday.
Mason said some families didn’t know until they were contacted by DNPE that they’re supposed to notify the state when they shut down. In other cases, Mason said DNPE removed schools who no longer had valid contact information.
But Mason said the interest level is still high, pointing to how 11,402 new home schools opened last school year. That figure is higher than what was reported annually before the pandemic.
This story was originally published August 2, 2023 at 4:49 PM.
