DENVER (KDVR) — New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows the number of families opting to homeschool their children is on the rise.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the rate of households homeschooling reached 11% by September 2020. Six months prior, only 5.4% of families were registered for homeschooling.

In our state, the latest data from the Colorado Department of Education shows the number of students homeschooling more than doubled last year to 15,773. In 2019, only 7,880 students were being homeschooled.

“Colorado is representative of what we’re seeing across the country – which is families had to make a lot of hard decisions last year and some of them chose to homeschool. Either for family flexibility or disenchantment with how remote school was going or they didn’t like the hybrid model — there are a lot of reasons where homeschooling may have been a better fit during the pandemic,” said Emily Levitt, Vice President of Education for the Sylvan Learning Center in Denver.

When it comes to students who registered in online educational programs in our state, that figure jumped up by 43% over the last year to a whopping 32,000 students.

According to the new data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the largest spike comes from Black households; homeschooling rates in that demographic rose from 3.3% to 16.1% in the fall.

Parents who have children with special needs and others who are seeking more faith-based curriculum are also seeing increases.