Charter schools take a lot of heat from advocates for traditional public schools because they can reduce both the enrollment and the funding of the district schools. But in fact, most Buncombe County children who opt out of the district schools are either in private schools or are home-schooling. Although families that choose private schools or home schooling do not impact the funding of public schools, they do take a toll on enrollment numbers.
As of the 2015-16 school year (the most recent information available), there were some 2,730 registered home schools in the county with an estimated 4,121 students, according to the state Board of Education. Across North Carolina, there were nearly 68,000 reported home schools, serving an estimated 118,268 students. About 40 percent of these “schools” were classified as independent, and 60 percent were religious.
That same year, 3,461 Buncombe County students were enrolled in 28 private grade schools. But since four of them are boarding schools with a combined enrollment of 732, those students weren’t necessarily local. Of the remaining 2,729 county students, 1,287 attended private schools classified as independent, and 1,442 were in religious schools.
Putting those numbers together, it appears that roughly 6,850 Buncombe County children weren’t attending any kind of public school, whether traditional or charter. That amounts to about 31.8 percent of the entire enrollment of all public schools in the county — more than three times the 2,171 students who currently attend local charter schools. Based on the available data, the Buncombe County Schools’ enrollment seems to be declining, whereas enrollment in all other types of schools is increasing.
Both The Franklin School of Innovation and Invest Collegiate Imagine, which serve high-schoolers, report having a good number of former home-schoolers. Michelle Vruwink, Franklin’s executive director, thinks that as home-schoolers approach the middle and high school years, their families “may be looking for other options.” And the statewide data do support that idea: For all age groups between 6 and 17, 16- and 17-year-olds are the two smallest contingents of home-schoolers.
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