Families turn to charter schools, homeschool during pandemic

Jun. 4—Enrollment dropped 5% in Haywood County schools since the outbreak of COVID-19, and many of those students turned to homeschool and charter schools to continue their education for the last two years.

Haywood County schools lost 544 students (544) since the 2019-20 pandemic school year, and enrollment declined in the last academic year as well.

Enrollment dropped from 7,101 students in 2019-20 to 6,742 in 2020-21 and to 6,557 in 2021-22.

Haywood County's overall decline is greater than the 3% nationwide average.

READ: Nation's Public School Enrollment Dropped 3 Percent in 2020-21

Jennifer Mathis, who began homeschooling her two children during the 2020-21 school year, said she quit her job to stay home and educate her children.

"I wasn't going to send them to school to wear a mask for 7+ hours a day," she said. "Everything that was normal for them was going to be turned upside down."

Before that year, her children attended public school, which she said was an overall positive experience before the pandemic.

Mathis said the benefits of homeschool include catering to each child's learning style and interests, which she said has improved their overall learning.

"Across the board, I feel that the education that I am giving my children is better than what they would be learning right now in public schools," she said.

Mathis said homeschooling her children has been the best decision she's ever made.

Homeschool enrollment grows 25%

With the decline in public schools, Haywood County saw a 25% growth in the number of homeschool students from 2019-20 to 2020-21 school years, according to data provided by the N.C. Department of Administration.

READ: All 100 counties see homeschooling increase

For the 2020-21 school year, Haywood had 1,269 homeschool students, an increase of 254 students (25%) from 2019-20. Homeschool figures for the 2021-22 school year have not yet been released.

The large growth in homeschool enrollment is a statewide trend — Haywood is one of 40 counties that had increases between 20% and 29%.

Surrounding counties — Swain (26.7%), Jackson (29.4%) and Buncombe (21%) — also saw large increases.

All 100 North Carolina counties, in fact, saw an increase in the number of homeschool students, ranging from 2.2% in Pamlico County to 38.5% in Currituck County, the state's most northeastern county.

Along with the growth in the number of students enrolled in homeschool, the number of homeschools registered with the state has increased.

In 2020-21, North Carolina had 19,294 registered homeschools, a 103.5% increase from 2019-20. The number of homeschools reflects the total number of families filing notice of their intent to initially operate a home school during that school year.

One caveat: these totals include some home schools that closed before completing their first full school year, which means some schools were formed and registered but students never actually "attended" those homeschools. Some students likely returned to public schools, or charter schools, in some instances.

Haywood Christian growing

Haywood Christian Academy, a private Christian school in Haywood County, has seen growth in enrollment the past three years.

HCA had 126 students in 2019-20. That number grew to 132 in 2020-21 and again to 157 in 2021-22.

Overall, HCA has gained 31 new students over the past two years.

Kelly Herbert, head of school at HCA, said the new students are a mix of public school transfers, homeschool students and some who move in to Haywood County.

Charter school growth

Shining Rock Classical Academy, the only public charter school in Haywood County, has seen its enrollment grow year-over-year for the past three years, says Head of School Josh Morgan.

SRCA currently has an average daily membership of 531 students, a 32.4% increase over last year and a 43.5% increase over the year before. SRCA has gained 161 students the past two school years.

"About 20-30% of our kids are coming from the homeschool population," Morgan said. "They're not coming from the county schools. They've seen a very steep decline. We've not come anywhere close to picking up that number of kids."

Where are the rest?

County public schools have lost 544 students in the past two years. Of those 254 are registered as homeschool students, 161 are enrolled at SRCA and 31 enrolled at HCA. That means 98 students are unaccounted for.

Some may show up once this year's homeschool numbers are released, but Morgan believes many of those unaccounted for students have fallen through the cracks.

"They don't show up in the private schools, they don't show up in the homeschool numbers," Morgan said.

Morgan said that one of the main issues is that no one entity — school systems, law enforcement or county social services — has the means or authority to track these missing students to help them get enrolled in school.

"It's recognizing that [no] one entity has the tools to solve the problem. Collectively, we may have some things that we can [use] to find kids and get them back into school," he said.

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