Wake County's school board is set to discuss Tuesday whether to let the district's 10,315 registered homeschool students attend public school classes part-time, a move that could reshape how thousands of local families mix home instruction with district resources. The proposal would let students attend a Wake school for part of the day alongside full-time classmates, or, under a second option better suited to younger kids, come in two to three days a week for designated part-time classes.
The Wake County Public School System has said flexible enrollment options may better serve students and families and promote inclusivity, according to the Raleigh News & Observer. The district's own survey found that 79% of homeschool family respondents said they would likely choose co-enrollment if Wake offered it, and the part-day schedule is seen as a better fit for middle and high schoolers while the two-to-three-day model is viewed as more workable for elementary students, per the same report.
Budget Pressure Behind the Push
The timing is no accident. Wake County Public School System faced $17.6 million in required budget cuts for the 2026–27 school year, on top of $10 million in prior reductions, according to Hoodline's recent reporting on WCPSS budget strain. Public schools only receive state funding for homeschoolers when those students attend at least half of the instructional day, so drawing part-time enrollees onto district rosters offers a direct path to recapturing per-pupil dollars the district has been losing.
The district's enrollment has been essentially flat, with WCPSS projected to enroll 161,415 students this school year, still fewer than before the pandemic, the News & Observer reported. That stagnation comes as 77 of North Carolina's 115 school districts already allow some form of part-time attendance for homeschoolers, per a Wake presentation cited in the same article, even though no state law requires districts or charter schools to do so.
Sports Access Still an Open Question
Perhaps the thorniest piece of the puzzle is athletics. Wake County school system spokesperson Michael Hyland said allowing homeschool students onto district athletic teams would require a separate school board vote, since the system has historically treated school sports access as a privilege reserved for district students. Under North Carolina State Board of Education Policy ATHL-005, districts are permitted — but not required — to let homeschooled students join interscholastic athletic teams; the North Carolina High School Athletic Association offers eligibility resources.
That distinction matters because Wake's own survey respondents flagged it directly: one parent said they would be more interested in part-time enrollment if extracurriculars were included, suggesting the district's eventual decision on sports access could shape how many families actually sign up. Hyland's comments indicate the board could end up handling academics and athletics as two entirely separate policy questions.
Homeschool Advocates Want Independence Protected
Not every homeschool parent is cheering unconditionally. Angie Cutlip, a former public school teacher, 25-year homeschool parent, and founder and director of ATC Educational Services who lives in Wendell, said she wants parents' freedom to direct their homeschools protected under any new policy. She told the News & Observer that homeschool parents need to retain responsibility for academic records and official homeschool transcripts.
Cutlip said school choice should expand meaningful educational opportunities, respect parental authority, and ensure transparent and responsible public funding — and that the board's proposal should be measured by how well it fulfills those promises, the paper reported. One survey respondent said combining homeschooling and public schooling could work for their family; they evaluate each year whether homeschooling or public school best fits their household and wanted the flexibility to do both.
A Legislative Backdrop That Keeps Falling Short
Wake's board has local discretion here precisely because state lawmakers have repeatedly failed to force the issue statewide. House Bill 905, introduced in 2025, would have required districts and charter schools to enroll part-time homeschool students — including those attending under half the day — while providing $270 million annually in state funding for schools that took them on. It died in committee, following the same fate as House Bill 800 in 2023, according to EdNC, leaving local school boards like Wake's with sole authority over whether to permit co-enrollment at all.
The backdrop is a shifting non-public education landscape statewide. The North Carolina Division of Non-Public Education reported that registered active homeschools fell to 95,190, serving an estimated 152,897 students, for the 2025–26 school year — down 6.57% from 101,880 the year before, following an administrative record cleanup, per EdNC's statewide market-share analysis. Meanwhile, Wake County private school enrollment surged 11% during the same school year to reach 23,982 students across 997 private schools. Statewide, the increase in the number of private schools was the largest one-year jump in more than four decades, amid the expansion of state-funded universal tuition vouchers, according to the Carolina Journal.
Those vouchers, known as Opportunity Scholarships, expanded in 2023, with universal eligibility beginning in the 2024–25 school year and annual awards ranging from $4,612 to $7,686 based on income tier, but the money is strictly limited to registered private schools and cannot be used for homeschooling expenses, per the voucher program's own guidelines. That gap helps explain why free public school co-enrollment could appeal to homeschool families seeking specialized STEM or advanced coursework without giving up their legal independence. Despite all the churn between sectors, traditional public and public charter schools combined still held roughly 84% of North Carolina's overall K-12 student market share in 2025–26, per EdNC's same statewide analysis.
Wake's co-enrollment debate also lands amid a broader state fight over who pays for school choice. Lawmakers have debated overriding Governor Josh Stein's veto of House Bill 87, which would opt North Carolina into a federal tax-credit program offering up to $1,700 for private tuition, tutoring, and homeschool expenses, as Hoodline reported this spring. Separately, a few eligible homeschooled students with documented disabilities can already tap North Carolina's Education Student Accounts program, which provides between $9,000 and $17,000 annually, according to HomeschoolLeap.
Part of a Larger Enrollment Strategy
The co-enrollment conversation doesn't exist in isolation from Wake's other capacity pressures. The district recently unveiled a draft 2027 enrollment realignment plan affecting 50 schools to populate the new $230 million Morrisville High School campus and ease elementary overcrowding in fast-growing western pockets of the county, as Hoodline detailed in its reporting on the Morrisville shakeup. Taken together, the boundary changes and the homeschool proposal reflect a district trying to stabilize its rolls on multiple fronts at once.
The Wake County school board is scheduled to take up the part-time enrollment policy question Tuesday; a separate board vote would be needed to address athletic eligibility. Whether families ultimately embrace the option may hinge less on the academic framework than on what the board eventually decides about letting homeschoolers suit up for Wake teams.
