RALEIGH — Enrollment figures for school choice options continue to rise in North Carolina while public school numbers continue to struggle to reach pre-pandemic levels.
In October, the N.C. Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) unveiled its first month of public school student population data for the 2023-24 academic year that shows the state saw a slight increase in enrollment but still a continued deficit of thousands of students when compared to pre-pandemic levels.
As per the latest Principal’s Monthly Report (PMR) which contains Average Daily Membership (ADM) information, traditional public schools account for 1,358,003 students in the 2023-24 academic year. That’s a 0.4% decline from the previous year and an overall decrease of 3.6% since the pre-COVID-19 period.
A decade ago, the final month ADM stood at 1,427,281 for the 2012-2013 school year; a 5.10% gap compared to the current year’s initial ADM.
Public charter schools, on the other hand, have seen a rise in enrollment, with 139,985 students across 209 schools in the 2023-24 academic year, marking a 4.9% increase from the previous year.
The gains continue a trend seen in 2022’s data where Charter enrollment was up 6.4% over the previous year and up over 19% since the 2019-20 school year.
According to a 2022 report by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools that examined school enrollment trends for the years during and after the pandemic (2019-2022), North Carolina was fifth-highest in the nation for charter enrollment gains during the pandemic.
The Alliance’s report says that during the same period, North Carolina had the ninth-largest public school enrollment drop in the nation, losing over 48,280 students. A similar data study conducted by BEST NC for the same timeframe showed public schools lost 41,203 while public charter schools gained 14,848 students.
According to the N.C. Department of Non-Public Education (DNPE), during the last school year, there were 152,717 homeschooled students.
For 2022-23, DNP reported 94,154 homeschools. All 100 counties in the state reported homeschool activity that year, with Wake County having the largest number of homeschools at 14,009, and Tryell County with the fewest at 53.
For comparison, there were 53,347 homeschooled students during the 2012-23 school year.
Homeschooling enrollment exploded during the pandemic, jumping almost 104% between the 2020-21 and 2019-20 school years.
NDPE’s 2022-23 data for private schools shows enrollment of 126,768 students across 884 schools.
Ten years ago, during the 2012-2013 school year, there were 698 private schools and 95,948 students in North Carolina. Compared to the current year’s number, that’s over a 26.6% increase in the number of schools and a more than 32% increase in student enrollment.
Private school enrollment will likely continue to grow following the General Assembly’s passage of the largest expansions of school choice the state has seen to date by extending access to the popular Opportunity Scholarship Program to all students in the state.
Every eligible student will be able to apply for funds to attend the private school of their choice using a sliding scale based on household income level with funding priority going to lower-income families. Under the expansion, eligible students will get at least an amount of up to 45% of the average state per-pupil allocation for average daily membership in the prior fiscal year, which currently would be $3,458.
