Homeschool enrollment in Sumter up 198 students

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Roughly half of Sumter School District's decline in total student enrollment this school year went to the homeschool ranks, but many of those families may go back after the pandemic.

Jade McLeod, the district's executive director of instruction, shared its annual homeschool report on Monday night with the district Board of Trustees, and a local homeschool association leader spoke Thursday to The Sumter Item.

The local district's annual homeschooling report increased by 198 students to 638 total students this year during COVID-19 from 440 students in the 2019-20 school year (pre-COVID-19).

The district began the school year in a fully virtual capacity without in-person classroom instruction and has since moved back and forth between all virtual and a hybrid/blended learning model that offers two days of classroom instruction and then three days at home with virtual and remote learning. The district is currently offering the hybrid option.

McLeod said some district families said their children struggled with virtual learning and being in front of a computer at home, but they intend to return to the public school setting post COVID-19.

"It was not that they didn't appreciate the teachers that their children were working with, but the situation just isn't currently working as well for them," she said. "But, they have informed us of their intent to return as we return to a normal society post-COVID."

Rachel Ward is the administrator for Sumter-based Homeward Education Association, which is the largest homeschool association locally, representing 412 of the 638 students in this year's district report.

Homeward Education's enrollment grew from 310 students last year to the 412 total this year during COVID-19.

Ward said she thinks most of the growth this year is from families of kindergarten and first-grade students, many of which would not have considered homeschooling before.

Locally, the district's virtual instruction requires those kindergarteners and first-graders to sit in front of a computer screen and try to learn from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. daily.

"That just doesn't work," Ward said. "So, that is what I am hearing is that they don't want their kindergartner or first-grader being taught virtually."

She also said she thinks a lot of those families will return to the public schools after the pandemic.

Ward said the trend statewide is an enrollment increase this year for most homeschool associations.

The local district's total enrollment is down 2.8% - or 440 students - from spring 2020 to fall 2020. Public school enrollment statewide is down 2.5% for the 79 traditional school districts, according to totals from the state Department of Education.