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“I think it is a combination of moving into a new campus in August 2021, quality of the total educational product, and to a degree, confidence in the stability of the product through the pandemic, and overall positive environment for young people,” Nemeth said.

Nemeth is not alone.

Across the country, private, religious and charter schools have seen enrollment growth during the shutdowns, mandates and quarantines of the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, many of those same schools are looking at school security and safety protocols after the bungled police response to the deadly May shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

“Following the Uvalde school shooting, we have had a noticeable uptick in inquiries for school security and emergency preparedness assessments from private and charter schools,” said Ken Trump, president of Ohio-based National School Safety and Security Services.

Local police departments also report getting more calls from private and charter schools about security needs and assessments following a school shooting in May in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 students and two teachers dead.

Trump said assessing school security can be new territory for charter and private schools.

Private, independent schools have also “historically been hesitant to have assessments performed out of concern that recommendations related to security and emergency preparedness might somehow adversely impact their school climate and cultures,” Trump continued. “Private independent schools and charter schools are increasingly realizing that they are not immune from security threats and that parents of their students have an expectation that their schools will exercise due diligence in evaluating and reducing risks, and preparing for safety incidents that could impact their schools.”

Trump said consultants need to understand that private, religious and charter schools have unique learning cultures that differ from public campuses and those need to be accounted for with security assessments.

“Like all schools, we revisit our crisis response and management plan annually,” said Nemeth. “We have a camera access system to the school to allow visitors into the school. We work with our staff on basic security and safety reminders, and will practice fire and emergency drills throughout the year. I think there is a heightened emphasis on door security and keeping eyes and ears open.”

An explosion over the past two years in home schooling, and private and charter schooling, has stemmed in part from parent and student frustrations with their public school districts’ decisions to pivot to remote learning, and worries over COVID-19 quarantine protocols at the pandemic’s peak.

“I think some parents have been concerned about the loss of instruction and distracting learning environments,” Nemeth said.

The trend has played itself out across the country with more families looking at alternatives to public schools. Private K-12 schools tended to keep classrooms open more than their public counterparts. Some families have also been turned off by their public school districts getting caught up in politically charged fights over mask mandates and sometimes frustrating quarantine rules as well as ideological battles for curriculums around race, gender identity and sexual orientation.

“Because of the way Catholic parochial schools handled COVID we have not seen an enrollment decline at all. In fact, during COVID our enrollments increased,” said Gene Fadness, communications director for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise, Idaho.

Charter schools — which are independently operated but publicly funded — also saw enrollment growth during the pandemic.

“During the 2020-21 school year, charter school enrollment grew 7%, the largest increase in half a decade. Nearly 240,000 new students enrolled in these innovative, student-centered public schools, despite a sharp decrease in overall public school enrollment during the same period,” said Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, for the Washington D.C.-based National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

There has also been a marked increase in home schooling during the pandemic with more parents and grandparents working from home as kids learn remotely.

“Our organization has grown from 40,000 to 750,000 since COVID started. Almost all have stayed even though the schools are getting back in session. Most parents admit they had no idea how wonderful homeschooling is until they were forced into it,” said J. Allen Weston, executive director of the Colorado-based National Home School Association.

Weston said some parents have voiced concerns about public school curriculums. “Aside from that, mask and vaccine mandates seem to be causing many parents to make the permanent switch to homeschooling,” he said.

Weston said concerns about school shootings and security have led some parents to turn to alternatives, despite “programming and societal pressures” adverse to options like homeschooling.

“Most parents are programmed to believe that children have to be ‘schooled’ for at least 6 hours a day and many parents think they don’t have that much time. But when children receive one-on-one attention from someone that truly cares about them, then they can accomplish more in just a couple hours a day than they would for a whole day at school,” Weston said, pointing to homeschool cooperative where parents take turns with groups of kids.

A new Gallup Poll released Sept. 1 showed 42% of Americans are satisfied with public education with 55% dissatisfied. However, 80% of parents with kids currently in school voiced satisfaction with their family’s educational experiences, according to Gallup.

A number of private, parochial and religious schools throughout the country declined or did not respond to requests for comments on their enrollment growth and school security efforts.