Spring 2024/Matthew McDill

North Carolinians for Home Education is celebrating our fortieth anniversary this year! So many families over these years have been blessed by the hard work of NCHE leaders to support homeschool parents and to make NC a wonderful place to homeschool. It is time to remember, celebrate, and be grateful.

Spencer and Debbie Mason, currently on the NCHE board, have been serving as leaders with NCHE since the 80s. Spencer is our law and policy director and office administrator. Debbie is our events director and media director. Last year, Debbie wrote a series of posts on Facebook that outlined the history of NCHE and homeschooling in NC (mainly taken from Spencer’s NC Homeschool History on the NCHE website). I’d like to share some of the very early history explained in those posts.

The Early Days of Homeschooling in NC—Early 1980s
Homeschooling is now widely accepted in North Carolina. It was a much different climate for home education in the early 1980s. Stories were told of homeschoolers living in rural areas who were able to stay in the shadows and exist without interference. However, those living in more urban areas did not have that advantage.

During this time, George Quick of Stanly County, Bob Groves of Ashe County, and Larry Cockerham of Harnett County were arrested and booked for homeschooling, and many more were threatened. (Larry Cockerham was a biology professor at Campbell University. Larry and George ended up being on the NCHE board.) Others recollected that fear was rampant among home educators. During school hours, they drew the drapes and kept their children hidden indoors. At the same time, homeschoolers realized that if they were going to have the freedom to educate their children, they needed to learn how to influence their legislators.

Personal Note: We moved to NC early in 1985, knowing this was happening to homeschoolers. Our oldest was four, and we were concerned but figured that we had over two years for things to change before the compulsory attendance age of seven. We had a plan. If the truancy officer knocked on our door, I would flee out the back door and take the kids to my mom’s in Tennessee, and Spencer would go to jail. We laugh at this now. ~Debbie Mason

The Formation of NCHE—1984
News of Larry Cockerham’s arrest for homeschooling his children ended up in newspapers statewide. Homeschoolers read about it in their local newspapers, and this caused homeschoolers statewide to come together. At that time, three groups of homeschoolers were organizing and lobbying for homeschool rights: the High Point/Winston-Salem group, a group in the greater Charlotte area, and another group in Hendersonville.

Concerns about the arrests and court rulings against homeschoolers prompted families in the Charlotte group to form North Carolinians for Home Education (NCHE) to encourage and organize homeschoolers across the state. They began with organizational meetings in public libraries in early 1984.

About that same time, a couple of ladies from the Winston-Salem group were planning a meeting in Jamestown and working hard to locate as many homeschoolers as possible. They contacted Focus on the Family and the Moores to get the names and addresses of people from North Carolina who had corresponded with questions about homeschooling. (Many homeschool pioneers learned about homeschooling in the late 1970s and early 1980s when they heard Raymond and Dorothy Moore being interviewed by James Dobson on the Focus on the Family radio program.) They sent out invitations, and that meeting—held at Solomon’s Porch on March 31, 1984—brought together groups of homeschoolers from all over the state under the banner of NCHE. This was the first statewide meeting under the NCHE name. The meeting was conducted by Mary McLaurin, a graduate education student at UNCG and a strong homeschooling advocate. (She later worked at DNPE.)

Three mailing lists were developed based on geography. The families at the meeting didn’t want a list with all their names that could fall into the hands of the authorities. There was a panic when, during the meeting, it was learned that a reporter from the Charlotte Observer was present. People thought they would be reported to the authorities. It turns out that this reporter was only interested in homeschooling his family.

At that meeting, a president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary, along with four regional coordinators, were elected. The Greenhouse Report was created as the newsletter, and the first editors were designated. The first issue was dated May 1984 and was sent to the 100 home educators who were brave enough to add their names to the NCHE mailing list. The Greenhouse Report was created to inform readers about legal actions against homeschoolers, strategies to reduce the chances of being arrested, parents’ legal rights, information on curriculum, and legislation. Additionally, homeschoolers were encouraged to be politically involved, and NCHE printed brochures and educational packets for parents to use in explaining home education to a largely ignorant public.

The Delconte Case—Homeschools Are Private Schools—1981-1985
In August of 1981, Larry Delconte of Harnett County was denied the right to homeschool his children, so he sued the state for that right. The court agreed that his homeschool met the requirements of the compulsory attendance laws, but the state appealed the decision. This action began a protracted battle in the courts. While this court fight was proceeding, NCHE was lobbying the NC General Assembly for a change in legislation to make homeschooling clearly legal.

In December 1983, the NC Court of Appeals overturned the lower court’s favorable ruling in the Delconte case. The Delcontes then appealed to the NC Supreme Court. On May 7, l985, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Delcontes, saying that under the current private school law, Chapter 115C, Article 39 of the North Carolina Code, homeschooling would be allowed. This decision was a huge event for homeschool freedom and would go down in NC homeschool history as the beginning of homeschooling being clearly legal. From then on, a homeschool was a private school and under DNPE.

NCHE went on to fight important legislative battles and worked to create laws that gave homeschoolers more freedom. As we continue to celebrate forty years of ministry to homeschool families, we will include some of these other chapters of our history in future issues this year. We are so thankful for the courageous homeschool pioneers who blazed the trail so that we can enjoy homeschooling in freedom today!

Matthew McDill and his wife, Dana, live in Clemmons, NC with five of their nine children. Matthew has been in pastoral ministry for over twenty-five years and is now the executive director for North Carolinians for Home Education. He earned his M.Div. and Ph.D. at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and authored the book Loving God: A Practical Handbook for Discipleship. Matthew loves to teach from God’s Word, especially on topics related to family relationships, discipleship, parenting, leadership and home education.

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