How much will Wake schools grow? It’s a guessing game thanks to NC voucher expansion.
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North Carolina School Choice
North Carolina is about to see record expansion in the number of students who get taxpayer-funded vouchers to attend private schools. But it’s not a cause for celebration for public school supporters at a time when they say they don’t get enough help. Here’s ongoing coverage from The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer.
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Wake County added 1,583 students this school year, but county planners warn that future growth projections are uncertain because of the state’s private school voucher expansion.
Wake County is reporting 159,995 students this school year — the largest amount since the pre-pandemic high of 161,907 students. New enrollment projections presented on Wednesday include the big caveat that things could change due to how every family in the state is now eligible for a private school voucher.
“The biggest X-factor that we have when thinking about forecasting membership moving forward is this new private school voucher law, unequivocally,” Nathan Dollar, director of Carolina Demography at UNC-Chapel Hill, told the school board’s facilities committee on Wednesday.
“It triples the budget for the Opportunity Scholarship Program and removes the income and prior school restrictions. This raises new uncertainties that we’re actively figuring out how to address.”
Universal private school vouchers
State lawmakers made major changes to offer universal private school vouchers.
Leaders eliminated income limits for receiving a private school voucher. Now a family’s income will only determine whether they’ll receive an Opportunity Scholarship of between $3,360 and $7,468 per child for the 2024-25 school year.
The N.C. State Education Assistance Authority received 47,917 completed applications as of Feb. 15. The one-month application period ends March 1.
But expansion could be even bigger in future years, with state lawmakers planning to increase voucher funding by $1.7 billion over the next nine years.
“We will not know the full impact of the new law until the largest increases in funding occur in the 2026-27 Fiscal Year,” according to the enrollment planning report.
Since it takes time to build a new private school, Dollar said they expect many of the new voucher recipients in Wake to initially be existing private school students.
“What we may see is home schools converting to private schools so they can cash in on the state funds,” Dollar said. “That’s a very strong possibility. We’ll be monitoring that.”
The school board will discuss at a planning retreat on Friday whether to add a moratorium on voucher expansion to the district’s legislative lobbying agenda.
Wake’s declining market share
The school district used to grow by more than 5,000 students a year. But now planners project it will grow by 450 students this fall and by 12,362 students over the next decade.
Wake County is still North Carolina’s largest school district. But, like many other school districts, it lost students during the pandemic as more families sought alternatives such as charter schools, private schools and homeschooling.
A decade ago, the school district educated 82.5% of the county’s school-age population. The district’s “market share” was down to 75.1% last school year, meaning nearly a quarter of the county’s students are seeking other education options.
Wake County Superintendent Robert Taylor said that they’ll need to market the district to reverse the declining market share.
“We’ve never had to really market ourselves,” Taylor told the committee. “But we now see that we definitely have to do that. Not only when it comes to how we retain students but also when it comes to faculty and staff that we have.”
This story was originally published February 22, 2024 at 7:00 AM with the headline "How much will Wake schools grow? It’s a guessing game thanks to NC voucher expansion.."
