The number of home schools in Polk County keeps growing.

There were 172 home schools serving 330 students in Polk County in the 2009-2010 school year, according to statistics released recently by the N.C. Department of Administrations Division of Non-Public Education. Thats up from 166 home schools and 319 Polk home school students the year before.

The number of home schools has steadily increased across the state since home-schooling became legal in 1985, going from 381 schools that year to nearly 43,316 schools today.

In Polk County, the number of home schools students has risen from 12 in 1988-89, to 106 in 1998-99. By 2006-07 there were 305 students in 151 schools. The rate of increase has slowed since then.

The number of home schools that claimed a religious base last year, 28,393, is slightly down as a percentage of the total, to 65.6 percent across the state. There were 14,920 independent home schools.

Home schools are defined in G.S. 115C-563(a) as a non-public school in which one or more children of not more than two families or households receive academic instruction from parents or legal guardians, or a member of either household.