Homeschooling In North Carolina

by Bettina Colonna Essert

North Carolina is a relatively simple state for homeschooling. The Department of Non-Public Education (DNPE) is the official government department for administrating homeschool regulations in NC. The DNPE website is a bit difficult to navigate and the way the homeschooling info on-site reads can make it difficult to separate law from what we'd like you to do. There is also the noxious posting of every registered homeschool in NC on an online list. The DNPE does not honor requests to keep your information private.

In order to legally homeschool children between the ages of 7 and 16 in NC, you must register your homeschool with the DNPE. In return you will receive a little orange card that means you are an official Non-Public School in the state of NC.

The legal requirements are these:    
1. Send to the Division of Non-Public Education (DNPE) a Notice of Intent to Operate a School.  The notice must include the name and address of the school along with the name of the school's owner and chief administrator;
>>note on this after item #2.

2. Hold at least a high school diploma or its equivalent;     
>>Sending the NOI is easy. Just send a letter stating that you will be homeschooling, that you (or your spouse or whoever you choose) will be the chief administrator and owner (this can be the same person or two different people) and the name of your school.
The owner/administrator must have a high school diploma *or it’s equivalent*.
The mailing address of the DNPE is: 1309 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC, 27699-1309

3. Elect to operate under either Part 1 or Part 2 of Article 39 of the North Carolina General Statutes as a religious or as a non-religious school;    
>>Part 1 and Part 2 of the Code sound frightening but all this means is that you are either religious or not religious.

4. Operate the school "on a regular schedule, excluding reasonable holidays and vacations, during at least nine calendar months of the year'';

5. Maintain at the school disease immunization and annual attendance records for each student;    
>>The fact that you must keep immunization records for your children does not mean that you have to immunize. It just means that you have to be able to access some sort of written information indicating what vaccinations your children have received, if any. The attendance records seem a bit goofy to me but it's in the law, so keep them.

6.Have a nationally standardized achievement test administered annually to each student.  The test must involve the subject areas of English grammar, reading, spelling, and mathematics.  Records of the test results must be retained at the school for at least one year and made available to DNPE when requested.  Also, see testing FAQS;
>>Testing can be done with the CAT which many homeschoolers use because you can do it at home, rather than having to find a testing center. So long as you’re careful to administer a *nationally* standardized test and not a state or locally standardized test (the EOGs will not do), you will be fine. (The EOGs are the NC End of Grade exams that all public schools administer at the end of the year. Our local school administrators generously offered to test my children for me, but because the NC DNPE does not recognize these as adequate indicators for their measuring purposes, we do not use the EOGs.) Also note that while you must test, you child does not have to attain any particular stanine or percentile on the test. You also are not required to administer any particular grade level test. Potentially you could offer your kindergardener an SAT...or your high school senior a 3rd grade CAT!

7. Notify DNPE when the school is no longer in operation.
(The numbered, italicized list is from the DNPE website, the >> bulleted notes are mine.)

These are the requirements. There is a long list of things the DNPE would like for you to do, but they are legally unnecessary, time consuming and if enough folks participate in the voluntary information sharing, the laws are likely to change to reflect this and make more paperwork for us to do and give the state more access to our personal lives.

There are a few statewide homeschool groups:
North Carolinians for Home Education
Homeschool Alliance of North Carolina
Families Learning Together NC

By and large, NC is a state where religious homeschool groups outnumber secular groups. If you are looking for a particular type of group in your area and can't find it, start one! You might be surprised to find like-minded people all around you. If you search here, you may find just what you're looking for. If you start your own group, you  might post it there so that others can find you.

Yahoo has several NC-homeschool groups. You can simply do a group search using NC and home school as your key words and you should come up with some satisfying results.

There will be a a homeschool conference and book fair in Winston-Salem on May 22-24, 2008. The group hosting is a Christian homeschool group and though I've never attended the conference, rumor has it that it is big and wonderful.

Overall, North Carolina is very homeschool-friendly and there is a pretty good infrastructure in place for those who are new to homeschooling or to North Carolina. We are also blessed to be in a state with rich history, great public universities, and tremendous natural resources from the coast to the mountains. 

Bettina Colonna Essert is a native of the Virginia/North Carolina borderland. She currently lives on a 'farmette' in rural NE NC with her husband, 2 home schooled children and a menagerie of farm animals. Bettina is an Equine Sports Massage Therapist and also handcrafts a line of fine, organic bath products, Alchemy Redefined.

Comments

[Erin]

This information came at a great time for me! We aren't quite ready to make the move to North Carolina, but my heart belongs to the Tarheel State and I am longing for the day that my husband and I can move our family there. My one concern was how our schooling was going to be effected, but now my questions have been answered!! Thanks!