Pine Springs Preparatory Academy in Holly Springs, North Carolina. Photo courtesy of Bruce Friend/EdNC.
EdNC has published a new deep dive on charter enrollment and trends. The article addresses where charter enrollment growth is occurring in North Carolina right now–and it also shares how the state stacks up nationally for schools and students.
We include an article excerpt below.
As a new school year dawns, North Carolina’s charter sector is poised for robust, continued enrollment growth. Yet experts point to increasingly high hurdles for new charter schools, with facility acquisition and increased competition for students topping the list. Established, rather than new, charter schools are the primary drivers of enrollment growth now, as obstacles to opening and other K-12 changes reshape the sector.
“The challenges of getting open are vast,” said Ashley Baquero, the executive director at the state’s Office of Charter Schools (OCS). She is seeing more delays from schools in the charter pipeline, as they struggle to find and finance facilities and hit enrollment targets.
Meanwhile, established charter schools with facilities, funding, and reputational capital continue to expand.
“The data has shown that the schools that have been around a little bit longer tend to be the ones that are growing — where a lot of the new enrollments are coming in,” said Bruce Friend, chair of the state’s Charter Schools Review Board (CSRB).
During the 2024-25 school year, state charter enrollment increased to 153,480 students, according to the new annual charter schools report from OCS. This figure represents a 6.1% annual enrollment uptick and an overall increase of 8,845 students since 2023-24.
Charter demand continues to outpace supply: 77% of state charter schools reported waitlists last year, totaling 74,287 students.
Somewhat paradoxically, however, the number of charter schools in 2024-25 declined for the first time in 14 years, dropping to 208 schools from 211 the year before. This is the first school downturn since state lawmakers removed the cap on charter school growth in 2011.
Only two new charter schools opened last year: ALA Monroe and Riverside Leadership Academy. Together, they accounted for 6.5% of the total annual enrollment increase, based on final Average Daily Membership (ADM) figures.
See the rest of the article from EdNC.
Read more
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