Charter Review Board approves new Wake County school, reviews enrollment analysis and remote academy data
A Wake County charter school applicant, Encompass Montessori, secured initial approval on Tuesday from the state’s Charter Schools Review Board (CSRB). The school now enters the state’s Ready to Open planning process, targeting 2028 for its opening. Encompass plans to launch in a charter-dense region: Already, 27 charter schools operate in Wake County, according to the Office of Charter Schools (OCS).
Another charter aspirant failed to win over the CSRB, however. Darden-Perry Academy hoped to open in Wilmington on an accelerated 2027 timeline, offering students bilingual immersion in English and American Sign Language (ASL). While CSRB leaders praised the school’s concept, they denied the application over feasibility concerns about the fast-track timeline.
This month’s meeting officially launched the CSRB’s 2026 interview cycle for 11 applicants in total, all with dreams of joining the state’s booming charter sector. During this 2026-27 school year, a record-high 217 charter schools are operating across North Carolina, according to OCS.
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Even as they authorized new charter growth, CSRB members also reviewed reports assessing North Carolina’s evolving K-12 enrollment landscape and popular remote charter sector.
Brian Eschbacher of Eschbacher Consulting provided CSRB members with a state enrollment landscape analysis. One-fourth of all K-12 students in North Carolina are educated in charters, privates, or homeschools, the analysis shows, with traditional district school enrollment declining from 79% in 2019-20 to 75% in 2024-25.
While illustrative of overall trends, such aggregated state data can nonetheless blur distinct regional differences, his findings show. In Northampton County, for instance, 56% of students attended a school other than the district — the highest in the state. In Robeson County, just 13% of students did.
“Where this story can really start to come to life and vary is when we start to look more specifically,” Eschbacher told the CSRB.
Would-be charter founders and applicants “need to do the kind of digging that Brian has done with this report,” said John Eldridge, who was elected CSRB chair on Tuesday. “The pool is getting shallow, right? And so, we have to be very strategic about what we’re doing to sell ourselves.”
In fact, all K-12 sectors face strong demographic headwinds. “We have the lowest birth rate in the history of our country,” Eschbacher said, citing a 16% decrease nationally. In North Carolina, births are down 6%, but steady migration has blunted enrollment effects.
CSRB members also reviewed what researcher Robert Markle of Safal Partners dubbed “hot-off-the-press” data on remote charter academy performance, along with a proposed pilot to study best practices.
Nine remote charter academies launched in North Carolina in 2026-27, bringing the current total to 19, Markle noted in his presentation.
CSRB members have previously expressed concern about the lack of data on remote charter effectiveness. Markle’s analysis, though limited, likely reinforced that concern. Using new state 2025-26 accountability data to assess five of 10 remote charter academies, he found 60% were low-performing (earning a D or F performance grade), compared to 21% of brick and mortar charters. Some remote charters were “too small to have a score,” he said.
“The schools are rapidly proliferating, and we want to make sure that there is something in place to do right by the students,” he said. “That’s really the impetus for this work.”
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Applicant decisions
To frame CSRB interviews, Melanie Rackley of OCS shared a presentation on the application process. Reviewers spent the summer vetting applications, she said.
OCS assigns each application three evaluators — two external, and one internal. Department of Public Instruction (DPI) staff in Exceptional Children and Multilingual Learners divisions also provide feedback.
Three of this year’s applicants are from Guilford County. Another is seeking to operate a statewide remote charter.
The newly approved Encompass Montessori expects to serve 144 K-1 students in its first year, growing to 528 K-5 students by year five, according to OCS data.
A repeat applicant, the school failed to secure approval in 2025, with the CSRB citing concerns about the charter management organization partnership, a failure to demonstrate demand, and leaders’ lack of familiarity with their application.
Encompass leaders said they had listened and revamped their application.
“We took all of your feedback from last year to heart, and we are back this year with a different team and a different approach for bringing this school to life,” Katie Brown, the board president, said.
Encompass now plans to launch as an independent school with no CMO (charter management organization) ties. In addition, the school has invested in community engagement and changed its board, Brown said.
“We have recruited a new slate of board members who have deep roots in the community we intend to serve,” she noted.
“Sometimes you leave this room really frustrated and even angry,” Bruce Friend, who was elected CSRB vice chair on Tuesday, said. “But there’s always the opportunity to come back and have an even stronger application.”
Darden-Perry Academy leaders, on the other hand, failed to convince the CSRB they had the infrastructure in place to deliver quickly on their bilingual model. According to OCS data, the school planned to serve 200 K-8 students next fall.
A key factor fueling CSRB skepticism was the school’s request to open on an accelerated timeline. Per state administrative rule, accelerated applicants must prove they have identified a facility that is “feasible for educational use.”
The school is pursuing rezoning for its facility, a former college, and does not yet have an educational certificate of occupancy (ECO), Rebecca Darden-Perry, the executive director, said.
Hopes hinge on a favorable recommendation from the planning commission, which meets in October, and then approval from the city council, which convenes Nov. 3.
Friend asked, “What if Nov. 3 comes and it’s not approved?”
“We will go into our contingency plan,” Darden-Perry responded. “And we have a real estate board member that is very familiar with that, and we would locate a specific location for that.”
That response did not satisfy the CSRB, which also viewed the budget as incomplete.
“I absolutely don’t feel that that budget or even the explanation of what was coming next is ready,” CSRB member Shelly Shope said.
The accelerated process has proven fraught for recent applicants. BH2 STREAM School failed to secure final CSRB approval in June due to a lack of readiness, particularly around its facility. The school appealed that decision to the State Board of Education, which voted last month to uphold the CSRB’s decision.
Amid questioning, Darden-Perry insisted the need was urgent, with over 300 interested applicants in the first month the school website went live.
“It was heart-throbbing,” she said. “I originally was only going to do 100, but there are going to be children on a waiting list. And it hurts my heart the longer we have to wait to open this school, and that is why we’re doing accelerated.”
“I appreciate their enthusiasm, and they see a need for the school, but the application lacks much,” CSRB member Hilda Parlér concluded.
“The goal isn’t to open the doors,” Friend said. “The goal is to open the doors and keep them open — and be successful.”
Darden-Perry Academy has the right to file an appeal with the State Board of Education within 10 days of the CSRB’s decision.
K-12 enrollment analysis
OCS Director Ashley Logue introduced the enrollment landscape analysis, sharing context on its origins.
“This spring, Great Schools North Carolina engaged with Brian, and they conducted a statewide enrollment landscape analysis,” she said. “Several of our CSRB members attended one of the presentations and felt like it would be helpful for the whole board to hear some of his findings, especially going into our upcoming charter application interviews.”
“What we’re trying to do is bring together multiple categories of information and connect those together geographically,” Eschbacher explained.
“We hope that it creates a fact base for data-driven decisions, whether it’s by authorizers or charter school offices or just support organizations that are working with aspiring school leaders,” he added. “We can also help school leaders directly, whether they’re in the planning phase or currently operating.”
Right now, multiple factors are fueling enrollment shifts, Eschbacher said. “There’s no one single metric that can really capture all the dynamics that are happening.”
Demographic shifts are clear, however: Declining birth rates are impacting the enrollment pipeline. But in North Carolina, while births are down, migration to the state is strong.
“Looking out over the next decade, we can see that the state is attractive to families, which is stabilizing that child population,” Eschbacher said.
At the county level, data revealed striking enrollment variation, even within urban areas. Among the larger counties, Durham County led in the percentage of students attending charters, privates or homeschools, at 34%. In Mecklenburg County, 29% of students attended these schools, compared to 26% in Wake County.
“I wish I had some of this data available over the last couple years because we wrestle with this idea of where charter schools might be needed,” and where saturation occurs, Friend said.
Notably, some schools are able to “buck the trends,” Eschbacher pointed out.
“Based on their model and their quality and the way that they engage families, they’re able to continue to grow despite the headwinds of there being fewer children,” he said.
Remote charter project
Rhonda Dillingham, the executive director of the North Carolina Association for Public Charter Schools, introduced the remote charter academy project to CSRB members. A large federal grant awarded to the association is providing funding for the project.
“We’re here to share an update on work the association is leading through our NC GROW CSP grant focused on remote charter academies — specifically, what quality looks like in a remote learning environment,” Dillingham said. “Remote education, as you know, has grown quickly in North Carolina. Today, we have 19 remote charter academies serving families across the state. With this growth comes the most important question: How do we make sure we have a clear and fair way to understand and evaluate quality?”
Remote charter academies were authorized in a 2023 law. The two original virtual charters, NC Cyber Academy and NC Virtual Academy, each received renewals as remote charter academies in January, a process that was also authorized in 2023. Both schools had operated under the state’s virtual charter pilot since 2015.
Those two schools are stand-alone remote charter academies, along with two others. The remaining remote charter academies each operate under the umbrella of an existing charter school.
Given the complexity of the various remote charter academy (RCA) formats, OCS has begun tracking all of the state’s charter schools this way, according to Logue:
- Number of brick and mortar schools: 213
- Number of RCAs under a brick and mortar: 15
- Number of full virtual RCAs: 4
- Total PSUs (public school units): 217
- Total PSUs + RCAs: 232
For the remote charter project, work is still early, Dillingham noted, with Safal Partners launching the project in May. So far, researchers have conducted a literature review of best practices, along with interviews or surveys of charter stakeholders (CSRB, charter operators, and OCS).
The literature review, Markle said, affirmed the importance of three primary factors: adult presence, engagement signals, and preparation at intake.
At the state level, feedback from North Carolina stakeholders emphasized two consistent ideas, Markle noted:
- “A floor for every school.” (Are students learning and growing?)
- “Fidelity to what was promised.” (Is the school doing what it pledged to do?)
Despite their poor performance, remote charters have also shown the capacity to improve, Markle noted.
“Every remote charter did show improvement, which is encouraging,” Markle said of 2025-26 test results.
One, NC Cyber Academy, earned a C performance grade for the first time in the school’s history.
Remote charter academies also serve notably different student populations, Markle said: Approximately 65% of their students are economically disadvantaged compared to 41% in brick and mortar charters.
Still, socioeconomic status explains only part of the performance variation. A 2025 report from DPI found that low socioeconomic status accounts for nearly one-quarter (23%) of the difference in school performance grades for remote academies. That report included both district-run virtual academies as well as remote charter academies.
Evaluating district virtual academies is outside the scope of this project, however, Markle said.
Most of the performance variation “is explained by something else,” other than socioeconomic status, Markle noted. “We don’t have great data yet on what that is, but that is where we want to go.”
Researchers have developed an implementation guide as well as a draft quality indicators rubric and monitoring approach. A key next step includes piloting the rubric and monitoring approach with remote charter academies, Markle noted.
“It’s important work to be done for our board,” Friend said, anticipating that the first cohort of remote charter academies will return in several years for renewal decisions.
“We can’t simply take the existing renewal guidelines that we use for traditional brick and mortars and apply them to this learning environment,” he added. “It won’t work.”
Other business
The CSRB also approved mission statement revisions for Charlotte Lab School, Gray Stone Day School, and Shining Rock Classical Academy.
According to OCS, these requests were required as part of the schools’ renewal visits.
In addition, the CSRB approved Davidson Charter Academy’s request to partner with Tutelage School Solutions LLC, an education management organization, or EMO.
Currently, Tutelage partners with six schools in South Carolina, with eight more approved to open, according to CEO Tony Helton. Davidson Charter will be its first North Carolina school.
Davidson Charter’s board voted in June to engage the EMO to address three core areas: enrollment, financial performance, and academic performance.
Currently underenrolled, Davidson Charter is operating at 65% capacity, according to Amanda Whitaker, the board chair. “At a school in its 10th year of operation, this is concerning for the board,” she said.
Low enrollment has negatively impacted the school’s financial position. Administrative turnover has also been high, according to Christine England, the board vice chair.
Culture and leadership are key factors in school success, she said, but “these are not achievable and sustainable when there is a new head of school every other year.”
Finally, Natasha Norins of OCS introduced Deborah Brown, the 2026 Charter School Principal of the Year, and Stephanie Lane, the 2026 Charter School Teacher of the Year.
Both will serve one-year terms as nonvoting CSRB members.
The CSRB meets next on Oct. 5-6.
Editor’s note: EdNC has retained Kristen Blair to cover the monthly meetings of the Charter Schools Review Board. Kristen currently serves as the communications director for the North Carolina Coalition for Charter Schools. She has written for EdNC since 2015, and EdNC retains editorial control of the content.