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Home-Schooling Rose 21% Across North Carolina During Pandemic Year, New Tally Shows

Jarrett McCain
Kailyn McCain was home-schooled last year, but her mother has enrolled her in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools for 2021-22.

When public schools opened with remote classes and uncertain schedules last August, it quickly became clear that a lot of North Carolina families were choosing other options for their kids.

New state tallies of home-schooling and private-school enrollment put numbers to where they went.

Almost 180,000 North Carolina students were home-schooled last year, an increase of more than 20% over the previous year. Mecklenburg County alone saw about 2,100 more children join the ranks of home-schoolers.

The number of families licensed to home-school their kids rose from about 95,000 in 2019-20 to almost 113,000 last year.

In the last five years, the state's estimated home-school enrollment has gone from roughly 118,000 to almost 180,000, increasing by 52%.

Private Schools Grew More Slowly

Private-school enrollment also grew, but on a smaller scale. Statewide enrollment topped 107,000, up about 3%.

Mecklenburg's private school total rose 2.4%, to about 18,800. Lincoln, Union and Cabarrus counties saw larger-than-average percentage increases, but have fewer students in private schools.

Over the past five years, enrollment in North Carolina's private schools has risen almost 10%.

In counties like Mecklenburg and Wake, where private schools are plentiful, private enrollment tops home-schooling, but that's not the case in many smaller counties.

'Market Share' Shifts

Even with the significant drop in traditional public schools that was reported last fall — school districts were down an average of 5% statewide — they served about 76% of North Carolina's school-age children last year.

State and local education officials say some of the home-schooled students will likely return to public schools, with in-person classes a near certainty for the coming year. Large numbers of families kept their kids home from kindergarten last year, with total enrollment down 15%. Those children may show up as first-graders or kindergarteners in August.

Charter schools, where enrollment has been growing steadily for years, accounted for about 7% of school-age kids statewide. The new reports indicate that about 10% of all North Carolina students were home-schooled last year and 6% attended private schools.

In Mecklenburg County, about 72% of students were enrolled in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, 12% in charter schools, 10% in private schools and 7% in home schools. (Rounding accounts for the fact that state percentages come to 99% and Mecklenburg's come to 101%.)

Copyright WFAE 2021.  For more go to WFAE.org

Ann Doss Helms covers education for WFAE. She was a reporter for The Charlotte Observer for 32 years, including 16 years on the education beat. She has repeatedly won first place in education reporting from the North Carolina Press Association and won the 2015 Associated Press Senator Sam Open Government Award for reporting on charter school salaries.