RALEIGH, N.C. — The four Johnston County children allegedly killed by their father appear to have fallen through the cracks in the state’s education system, according to home-school advocates.

Wellington Dickens III is charged with killing four of his five children, ages 6 to 18, over what authorities believe was a four-month period. Dickens appears to have run an unregistered home school at his home in Zebulon, which may have kept his children away from prying eyes.

“In a state like North Carolina, parents with ill intent can exploit those loopholes to essentially disappear their kids, which I think is the case that happened here,” Tess Ulrey, executive director of the Massachusetts-based Coalition For Responsible Home Education, said in an interview Thursday with The News & Observer.

Here’s a look at what The N&O found about state education and home-school laws.

—What is North Carolina’s compulsory school attendance law?

North Carolina law requires parents to make sure their children are regularly attending school between the ages of 7 and 16.

Parents are also required to make sure that younger children enrolled in a public school in kindergarten through second-grade are attending regularly.

Violation of the compulsory school attendance law is a Class 1 misdemeanor.

—Operating an unregistered home school

None of the Dickens children attended public school in Johnston County, according to a school system spokesperson.

Johnston County Sheriff Steve Bizzell said the children were apparently home-schooled.

But the state Department of Administration’s Division of Non-Public Education says it does not have a record of a home school at Dickens’ address or registered under his name.

Dickens would not have been required to register the 6-year-old and the 18-year-old he’s accused of murdering. But he would have had to register the 9-year-old and 10-year-old he’s charged with killing.

“It appears that people who are not caring for their kids would want to remove them from school settings,” Matthew McDill, president of North Carolinians for Home Education, told ABC11, The N&O’s newsgathering partner. “And so you know, it’s interesting that these aren’t actually, you know, normal homes-chool families. There are people who are trying to hide something.”

—What are North Carolina’s home-school requirements?

North Carolina has several requirements for people to begin and maintain a home school.

—Home school administrators must have at least a high school diploma.

—A notice of intent to start a home school must be sent to the Division of Non-Public Education.

—Maintain immunization and annual attendance records for each student.

—Administer a nationally standardized achievement test each school year.

The Division of Non-Public Education is also responsible for overseeing the states’ private schools. The division is so understaffed that it has historically asked home-school families to come to its office in Raleigh to help its staff with paperwork for other families.

Ulrey of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education said North Carolina has better home schooling laws than some states. But Ulrey said there other states, such as Pennsylvania, which do a better job of keeping track of where all their children are being educated.

“We depend on the larger social fabric and network to help us find these kids so they don’t disappear,” said Ulrey, who was a home-schooler. “A lot of those resources come from either a school system or they come from more robust oversight. That’s how we can make sure we’re keeping track of kids and that kids are safe.”

—Nearly 200 home-school deaths since 2000

The Coalition for Responsible Home Education argues that stronger oversight is needed to prevent child abuse and neglect in home schooling. The group cites its Homeschooling’s Invisible Children national database, which found 423 cases of abuse and 191 child fatalities among home-schoolers since 2000.

“One of the reasons that we advocate for home-school oversight is to ensure that children are coming into contact with mandated reporters, with a larger community so that they can have more opportunities to hopefully not fall through the cracks,” Ulrey said. “We want all of our children to have access to an open future, and that does mean coming into contact with more safe adults. It sounds like these children were unfortunately victims of that process.”

But the Oregon-based National Home Education Research Institute argues that students who are in public schools or private schools are more at risk of abuse or fatalities than those who are in a home school.

“There is no clear evidence of an increase in reported incidents of abuse or other harm in states that move toward laws recognizing and allowing fuller homeschooling freedom,” according to the National Home Education Research Institute.

—How popular is home schooling?

In the 2024-25 school year, there were 101,880 home schools registered with the state. North Carolina’s estimated enrollment is 165,243 home-schoolers.

The majority of North Carolina home schools (53%) are religious based.

In a 2017 court filing, Dickens claimed he shouldn’t be subject to federal statute 42 US Code section 666, which governs state child support procedures, because the number 666 violated his religious beliefs, The N&O previously reported

The number 3.7 million is often cited as the nationwide total for home-schoolers.

Enrollment numbers rose during the pandemic even as they shrank in traditional public schools.

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