Study: More students are being taught at home
By Staff Reports
Published in News on August 4, 2010 1:46 PM
RALEIGH -- The number of home schools has more than doubled in the last decade, according to a statistical report recently released by the N.C. Division of Non-Public Education in the Department of Administration.
Statewide, 43,316 home schools operated during the 2009-10 school year as compared with 20,113 during the 2000-01 school year, said Dr. Chena Ford, DNPE director. She said the data also showed a 1.1 percent increase each year.
Home schools are scattered across the 100 counties of the state. Counties with the largest number of home schools during 2009-10 included Wake with 4,023, Mecklenburg with 3,131, and Buncombe, which had 1,666. Those with the lowest number were Tyrrell County, with 23, Hyde, 33, and Clay, 44.
Wayne County was listed as having 370 registered home schools this past school year, with enrollment of 691 students.
By definition, a home school is a "non-public school in which one or more children of not more than two families or households receive academic instruction from parents or legal guardians, or a member of either household."
North Carolina legalized the concept of home instruction officially with the 1985-86 school year.
Currently, enrollment in home schools constitutes slightly less than 5 percent of the state's compulsory attendance age school population, ages 7-16.