Homeschooling in North Carolina, district by district

This story was first published by Ben Humphries, EducationNC
August 27, 2024

Homeschooling in North Carolina is on the rise again. The previous article covered the difference between North Carolina’s homeschooling policies and those of other states; this research analyzes differences in policy among school districts in North Carolina.

Many decisions are left up to school boards when it comes to homeschooling. The state doesn’t dictate whether public schools must allow homeschooled students to enroll part-time, for example. House Bill 800, introduced in the General Assembly in 2023, would have required all school districts to allow part-time enrollment – also sometimes referred to as dual enrollment – of homeschooled students, but it died in committee.

Instead of being governed by state law, school district policies on part-time enrollment, extracurricular participation, student placement, and the awarding of credit are contained within their local school board’s policy manuals.

Below, policies are collected from all 115 school districts’ manuals to give insight into trends in common policy decisions, but every school district policy is unique. To read your district’s policy, look for its policy manual on its website, which can be found easily through EdNC’s list of districts.

Each district policy is unique, but many share language

While school boards have the power to adopt any policy they wish as long as it aligns with state and federal regulations, most use prefab clauses. It is common to see, for example, the extracurricular participation policy of one district verbatim in another district’s manual.

This is probably because 114 of the 115 districts (all except for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools) are aided by the North Carolina School Boards Association (NCSBA) when writing policies. NCSBA keeps a reference manual called Policies to Lead the Schools (PLS) which Christine Scheef, legal counsel and director of policy for NCSBA, said is updated at least twice a year.

“A lot of local boards use that as a base for their manual,” she said. “So that is why you will sometimes see language that seems identical.”

Scheef added that school boards could also be sharing wording directly with no connection to PLS.

Districts can access PLS by paying a one-time fee of $3,500, and NCSBA provides other services such as updates, advice on crafting language, and evaluations of policy language for additional charges. NCSBA also provides webhosting services, which many districts use to host their policy manuals.

How do policies compare across districts?

This analysis splits homeschooling policies into four categories: participation in extracurricular activities, part-time/dual enrollment, entering student placement, and the awarding of credit.

Participation in extracurricular activities

Homeschooled students are largely allowed to participate in interscholastic athletics throughout North Carolina. A few districts, such as Wake County Public School System, make no mention of extracurriculars but also don’t explicitly prohibit participation.

Policies are mostly divided between participation in sports and participation in JROTC, the latter of which is more commonly permitted. Only a handful of districts explicitly prohibit participation in sports by homeschooled students, including Duplin County Schools, Bladen County Schools, and Rockingham County Schools. Pender County Schools prohibits participation in sports for middle school homeschooled students.

One district, Wilkes County Schools, explicitly mentions that homeschooled students can enroll in driver’s education.

Part-time/dual enrollment

Likewise, most school districts allow part-time enrollment – usually called dual enrollment in policy manuals – of homeschooled students. Homeschooling parents often praise the ability to send their child to school for part of the day while still conducting most of their education at home.

Many districts have an explicit clause allowing dual enrollment, while others have no explicit clause allowing dual enrollment for homeschooled students but imply their permission through language in their extracurriculars clause. Take the first sentence of Asheville City Schools‘ extracurriculars clause:

“Home school students who are dually enrolled in accordance with the school system’s enrollment and assignment policies and procedures are eligible to participate in high school interscholastic athletics if they comply with all of the following.”

On the map above, districts with this vague language are marked by a note in the tooltip that appears when hovering over each district.

Very few districts explicitly disallow dual enrollment, with Randolph County Schools and New Hanover County Schools disallowing it only for elementary school students, and Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools disallowing it across the board.

Entering student placement for transferring homeschool students

Entering student placement policies dictate the grade and class placement of students transferring to public school from a homeschool. It is less common for districts to have a policy outlining placement, but 21 districts do have one.

Students may be evaluated by the principal of the school into which they are transferring, including through testing or examination of existing test scores. They may also take into account age, emotional maturity, and social development. Some districts don’t specify criteria for placement.

Awarding of credit for transferring homeschool students

Like entering student placement, fewer districts have a policy on the awarding of credit to previously homeschooled students transferring to public schools. Many districts also defer to the principal in awarding credit to incoming students.

What has changed since 2016?

The last time EdNC did an analysis on the board policies of North Carolina’s school districts in 2016, the numbers were quite different. Out of 115 school districts, only 13 explicitly allowed dual enrollment, versus 75 today (including districts with dual enrollment implied by their extracurriculars clause).

Now, 79 districts allow participation in sports alone while in 2016, just nine districts allowed extracurricular participation. Even more allow enrollment in JROTC.

And districts which previously did not allow extracurricular participation or dual enrollment have changed their tune. Since 2016, the number of districts that do not allow extracurricular participation has decreased from 13 to nine, and the number of districts that do not allow dual enrollment has fallen from 15 to three.

The number of districts accepting homeschooled students into sports programs and allowing them to enroll part-time could be a signal they are embracing homeschoolers; as homeschooling numbers rise, it may become even more common for school boards to open their policy manuals to them.

Editor’s note: This article was updated on Aug. 28, 2024 in response to updated data from Edgecombe County Public Schools.

This article first appeared on EducationNC and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.