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NORTH CAROLINA
Compulsory Attendance Ages: “between the ages of seven and 16 years.” General
Statutes of North Carolina § 115C-378.
Required Days of Instruction: at least nine calendar months of the year,
excluding reasonable holidays and vacations. Sec. 115-548 or § 115-556.
Required Subjects: None required but annual standardized testing must measure
achievement in the areas of English grammar, reading, spelling, and mathematics.
Home School Statute: Article 39 §§ 115C-547 through 115C-565.
1. Definition: “Home school means a nonpublic school in which one or more
children of not more than two families or households receive academic
instruction from parents, or legal guardian, or a member from either household.”
Sec. 115C-563.
2. A home school must meet the following requirements:
a. operate for a nine calendar month school term. Sec. 115C-548 or § 115C-556.
b. keep attendance records and disease immunization records. Sec. 115C-548 or §
115C-556.
c. any new home school shall notify the State Director of the Division of
Nonpublic Education of their intent to operate and include the name and address
of the school, the school’s owner, and chief administrator. Sec. 115C-552 or §
115C-560.
d. the home school must also elect to operate either under the qualifications of
a “private church school or school of religious character” (§ 115C-547 through §
115C-554) or under the qualifi-cations of a “qualified nonpublic school” (§
115C-555 through § 115C-562). The requirements of these two options are
basically the same and are summarized in a) through c) above.
e. if the home school operates in a private home, all safety and sanitation
requirements are automatically waived. Sec. 115C-564.
3. “It is the public policy of the State in matters of education that “No
human authority shall, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the
rights of conscience’, or with religious liberty and that religion, morality and
knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind ...
the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 115C-547.
4. The legislation recognizing home schooling came about by a decision of the
N.C. Supreme Court in Delconte v. State, 329 S.E. 2d 636 (1985). In that case,
the Court held that a “home school” met the definition of a “private school” and
was therefore protected by the law. After reviewing many cases, the Court
declared:
In summary, our sister jurisdictions, when faced with the question of whether
home instruction is prohibited by school attendance statutes which specify
various standards for nonpublic schools, have always analyzed the question not
in terms of any meaning intrinsic to the word “school” but rather in terms of
whether the particular home instruction in questions met the statutory standards
… we think this is the better approach to the problem.
The North Carolina Supreme Court then analyzed their legislative history and
found no attempt by the legislature to ever define the word “school.” The Court
concluded:
The legislature has historically insisted only that the instructional setting,
whatever it may be, meet certain standards which can be objectively determined
and which require no subjective or philosophical analysis of what is or what is
not a “school.”
Teacher Qualifications: Parent must have high school diploma or a GED. Sec.
115C-564.
Standardized Tests: Parent must administer an annual standardized test (§
115C-564) any time during the school year which must be made available on
request “for inspection” by the state “at reasonable times. For one year after
the testing, all records shall be made available ... at the principal office of
such school, at all reasonable times, for annual inspection by a duly authorized
representative of the State of North Carolina.” (§ 115C-549 or § 115C-557).
Although the Division of Nonpublic Education has attempted to perform home
visits under this provision, the law gives its officials no right to enter homes
to inspect any other records but test scores. There is also no statutory
requirement for parents to attend regional meetings arranged by the Division of
Nonpublic Education for the purpose of reviewing their records. The
“inspection,” furthermore, is limited only to reviewing test scores. Copies of
testing results can be simply mailed to the Division of Non-Public Education
upon request.
College Admissions for Homeschoolers: North Carolina House Bill 746 (1997),
which was passed by the General Assembly and signed into law by the Governor,
directed the University of North Carolina Board of Governors to review the
University’s admissions procedures, practices and requirements regarding
applicants from home schools in compliance with North Carolina law. This states
that the University policy must “not arbitrarily differentiate between
applicants based upon whether the applicant attended a public or a lawfully
operated nonpublic school.”
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