General Private School FAQs

Contact your local government building inspector's office for complete details -- either city or county, depending on the local governmental jurisdiction in which the building is located.

More information can be found on the page for Daycare through Grade 2 Students in Existing Buildings.

No, North Carolina non-public school laws do not address it and North Carolina non-public schools are exempt from the North Carolina public school laws and policies relating to it.

The Public Schools of North Carolina policy, however, is found in G.S. 115C-375.1. 

This topic is also addressed in the childcare statutes in G.S. 110-102.1A.

No, G.S. 115C-554 and 562 exempt North Carolina non-public schools from all public school laws and policies regarding this issue, since non-public schools unlike all public schools are not financed by federal or state government dollars.  (The non-public education statutes are found in G.S. 115C-547-562).

However, be aware that when a former non-public school special needs student transfers to a public school, all public school laws and policies then apply. 

The Exceptional Children Division within the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction administers public school requirements and policies relating to its special needs enrollees.

G.S. 115C-554 and 562 exempt North Carolina non-public schools from the student attendance and tardiness requirements of North Carolina's public schools.

However, every North Carolina non-public school must operate on a regular schedule for at least nine calendar months each year and require its students to regularly attend classes.  See G.S. 115C- 548 and 556. 

Each North Carolina non-public school establishes its own policies and procedures for handling excessive student absence and tardiness situations and usually distributes a published copy of them annually to each school family. 

The document specifies the maximum number of days (or times) a student may be absent (or tardy) during any given school year.  The publication should also state what will happen to the student should he/she exceed the maximum number of absences or tardies allowed by the school. 

It would usually state that the student may be permanently expelled from the school once the maximum permissible number of days or tardies have been reached. 
Once the student has been expelled, the North Carolina non-public school then reports the student expulsion directly to local public school compulsory attendance enforcement officials for their immediate follow-up. 

Please note that local compulsory attendance authorities will normally not handle excessive student absence or tardy situations until after the student is no longer enrolled in the North Carolina non-public school. 

Pertinent North Carolina public school student compulsory attendance statutes include: G.S. 115C- 378, 379 and 380. 

The specific penalty limits for the various classes of misdemeanors are found in G.S. 15A- 1340.23.

Yes. North Carolina non-public schools are exempt from all North Carolina public school laws except for those relating to building inspections and student immunizations.  North Carolina's non-public school laws do not address the issue of corporal punishment.
State law allows all local North Carolina public school systems to use corporal punishment if they wish to do so; however, most of them do not exercise it.

DNPE suggests that schools utilizing it follow the public school general guidelines for its use. 

You may access them by clicking on G.S. 115C-391.

Yes. See the US Congress Privacy Act of 1974. The North Carolina General Statutes address the use of social security numbers in G.S. 132-1.10.

No.

There are US immigration laws which all North Carolina non-public schools must follow. These laws have changed dramatically since the PATRIOT Act was enacted by the US Congress as a result of 9/11.

All schools must now be approved by the Federal government (Immigration & Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security) to accept international (foreign) students. 

If the Federal government (US Immigration & Naturalization Service) has certified your school previously to accept international students, that certification is no longer valid, as of Aug. 1, 2003. 

Any previously issued Forms I-20 are no longer valid.  Submission of I-17 forms are now required of each school. 

To apply for certification or renew a previous certification, please click on US Immigration & Customs Enforcement. 

You may also telephone that Federal government agency in Washington, DC for information and assistance.

The Student Driving Info page contains information on the requirements and procedures for obtaining a student driving eligibility certificate.

The Student Driving Info page contains procedures for revoking a student's driving eligibility certificate.

Additional questions and answers relating to student driving and Driving Eligibility Certificates can be found on the page for Frequently Asked Questions on Driving Eligibility Certificates.

The only such programs/services currently available to North Carolina non-public schools or their students are:

The student Driver Education course (available free of charge only through the local public school system); and, participation in the annual Governor's School and teacher licensure programs. 

Voluntary participation in the Public Schools of North Carolina annual testing program is also permitted. 

However, please note that these tests are only state standardized tests.

There are some federally funded services available to qualifying North Carolina non-public school students -- not to schools; however, these programs are administered solely through the local North Carolina public school system.

Before contacting the federal programs administrator within the central offices of your local North Carolina public school system, visit the US Department of Education's Office of Non-Public Education web site. It provides some very helpful information concerning which programs/services are available.

In the State of North Carolina, the General Assembly and the State Board of Education make certain policies and minimal requirements for all public schools throughout the state.

Each local North Carolina public school system then follows these policies and requirements; however, each system is an independent local unit governed by additional policies and requirements made by the local board of education. 

There is no statewide requirement for local public schools to provide any type of assistance or services to North Carolina non-public schools or to students in such schools (except for those cited above in the first question).  The ultimate answer to this question would come from the local board of education.

Under present North Carolina law, there are no state funds available to non-public elementary and/or high schools. What distinguishes North Carolina non-public elementary/high schools from their North Carolina public school counterparts is simply that they receive no state funding for their elementary or high school programs.

For that reason, the laws governing North Carolina non-public schools provide greater "legal latitude" in the operation of them. 

However, the State of North Carolina does provide certain types of state funding for qualifying students enrolled in pre-kindergarten as well as before and after-school, childcare programs which operate under the legal jurisdiction of the North Carolina Division of Child Development. 

Yes, but only for students with disabilities. See G.S. 115C-111.2 and also G.S. 115C- 250(a).

The state offers Opportunity Scholarship grants to certain eligible students to pay towards tuition at participating nonpublic school. Please contact the North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority for information relating to these Opportunity Scholarships

Under North Carolina law, home schools enrolling students of compulsory attendance age must be registered with this office.  The parents/legal guardians of the students enrolled in the home school then "determine the scope and sequence of academic instruction, provide academic instruction, and determine additional sources of academic instruction."  

As long as the parent or legal guardian is determining the scope and sequence of the academic instruction and providing for that academic instruction, the home school may enlist the assistance of conventional non-public schools in whatever arrangement both school administrators agree to.

Yes.  However, the North Carolina conventional non-public school will then assume the full legal responsibility for the complete oversight of the student's education.

Local compulsory attendance enforcement officials will then regard the student as being enrolled in and regularly attending the conventional non-public school.

Should the parent be approached by local compulsory attendance enforcement officials, the parent would explain that the student is not enrolled in a home school but rather in a local conventional non-public school's "teaching-at-home program" (or some similarly named program) for a portion of each academic day. 

Non-public school laws do not address this question.

This decision would be made by the conventional non-public school or by the athletic or fine arts organization of which the conventional non-public school is a member.

No. Non-public school laws give such schools the freedom to establish their own policies regarding the age cutoff for admission.  See G.S. 115C-554 & G.S. 115C-562

For example, a non-public school may require that the child turn age 5 by November 1 of the school year during which the child seeks admission to its kindergarten program.

No. Non-public school kindergartens may utilize a half-day schedule all year long, if the school so desires.

The child must have reached his/her 5th birthday on or before August 31 of the school year for which the child is seeking kindergarten enrollment. See G.S. 115C-364.

G.S. 115C-288a grants to the principal of a local public school authority to grade and classify students presented for enrollment in his/her school.

There is a distinct possibility that the public school principal may not move a younger non-public school kindergarten student into his/her public school first or second grade. 

Read the Attorney General's Office Legal Opinion on this subject.

In addition, non-public schools which use a kindergarten entry cutoff date later than August 31 may encounter some problems with the NC Division of Child Development involving its Child Care statutes as well as its Rules and Regulations.

No. Each North Carolina non-public school establishes its own criteria for the acceptance of credit earned at schools previously attended.

No.  North Carolina home school law requires each home school to make and maintain only three types of student records: attendance, immunization and annually required nationally standardized achievement test. It would be wise for the conventional non-public school to always require the parent to provide written evidence that the home school was registered with DNPE and satisfying North Carolina's home school laws as well as provide copies of the three types of legally required student records. 

The school might review the student's last nationally standardized achievement test results to determine adequate grade placement. 

The school might consider assigning at least a letter subject grade (and one unit high school credit) for each of the four major areas of the test -- provided the student scored at or above the national norm for each of the major subject areas tested.  Examples could include:  B in Language Arts; B in Math; B in Social Studies; B in Science, etc. 

The parent would be well advised to provide to the conventional non-public school as much paper evidence as the school will request and keep in mind that it will usually ask for more than the home school law requires.

The principal of each North Carolina public school determines whether transfer credit will be recognized by his/her school from the previous school -- regardless of whether it is a conventional non-public, a home or another public school.

Read carefully G.S. 115C-288(a) which addresses the powers and duties of the North Carolina public school principal.

The second paragraph of G.S. 115C-288(a) reads: "A principal shall not require additional testing of a student entering a public school from a school governed under Article 39 of this Chapter if test scores from a nationally standardized test or nationally standardized equivalent measure that are adequate to determine the appropriate placement of the child are available." 

This sentence was added in June of 1996 (as part of S1139, the ABC's Plan) by the North Carolina General Assembly in response to an organized effort by the North Carolina non-public school community requesting its addition to help prevent double testing of former non-public school students when entering the Public Schools of North Carolina. 

It is applicable only when the student was administered such a test in the latter portion of his/her final year of non-public school attendance. 

On occasion, a public school principal may honestly claim that the test scores are simply not adequate to determine the appropriate grade placement of the student. 

However, it was clearly the legislative intent of the North Carolina General Assembly that such occurrences be rare.  Since these tests are nationally standardized, most principals accept them as adequate, as long as there is no question about the credibility of the administering of the test and its scoring, and the scores indicate the student is functioning at or near grade level.