When state lawmakers launched the North Carolina Opportunity Scholarship in 2013, they promoted the program as one that would encourage school choice in the form of private school tuition for low-income families. Then, the program’s aid was restricted to families of four with household income of less than $44,123.
Every year since, the state has moved the goal posts. By 2022, families making as much as $111,000 qualified, and a decade after the launch, the number of students taking advantage of the program grew from about 1,000 to 25,000.
In 2023, the Republican-led legislature removed income caps entirely — and more than 80,000 North Carolina students received vouchers for the following academic year. Plans call for spending as much $500 million annually on the program by 2032.
Few if any institutions have benefited more from the scholarship program than Grace Christian School in Sanford, a city of 33,000 that is 45 miles southwest of Raleigh. It has received the most public funding than any of the state’s 930 private schools for three straight years, according to the North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority (NCSEAA), which oversees the scholarship.
Grace students received $5.13 million in tuition assistance during the 2024-2025 school year, a $2 million jump from the previous year. Over the last three academic years, Grace Christian has taken in nearly $10.5 million in state tuition assistance, ahead of Concord Academy and Trinity Christian School in Fayetteville, which each collected about $7.6 million during that time.
Such public assistance was marketed, at least initially, as a way to make a private school option affordable for more families. Another factor was creating competition to spur improvement at public schools. Grace Christian has more than doubled its annual tuition over the past two years, while adding new buildings and athletic facilities. Enrollment is about 960, according to
its website. That is nearly triple the level before the pandemic in 2020.
The school raised tuition to $18,300 this year, versus $17,900 last year and $9,000 in 2023-24, according to a parent who asked to be unnamed because his children attend the school. His family’s income made him ineligible for the Opportunity Scholarship program previously.
Each Grace Christian student is required to apply for the scholarship, including students of school employees who receive discounts of as much as 85% of tuition, he notes.
“I think everybody was in a state of panic when we saw this [hike], saying, ‘What the heck is going on here?’” he says. “There’s no way families in Sanford can afford $18,000 tuition a year. But then they push this Opportunity Scholarship like you’re getting a deal.”
Grace Christian also offers its own financial aid, requiring a $40 application fee and family tax returns. The parent says he declined to disclose that information.
“Without a doubt, Grace Christian School is taking advantage of this program.”
Grace Christian Head of School Stuart Shumway, Chief Financial Officer Johnathan Bullard and Lead Pastor Joel Murr and other school officials declined multiple requests for interviews. The state authority that administers Opportunity Scholarship also declined to comment when asked about the propriety of requiring students to file applications for scholarships. The agency also didn’t want to discuss schools’ decision to boost tuition while receiving state funding.
$98 MILLION PLAN
Located along busy U.S. 1 on the south edge of Sanford, Grace Christian doesn’t look like a private school that leads the state in public funding. Its main offices are separated from the highway by about a half-acre of tombstones in a graveyard. Classrooms are a mix of brick buildings and temporary trailers. A recently renovated baseball stadium that rivals some of the state’s collegiate and minor league parks dominates the middle of campus.
The influx of scholarship and tuition comes as Grace Chapel is showing rapid growth. The church runs the school as a “community ministry” by providing facilities, utilities and financial support. It had $20.2 million in revenue in 2023, more than triple the amount reported in 2017, according to annual tax filings.
Grace Christian School is enjoying unprecedented success. Its enrollment from kindergarten to 12th grade has nearly tripled since the pandemic, when in-person classes continued with masks not required. The school has invested millions of dollars on renovations for new and existing athletics facilities, helping boost multiple sports programs that have won several state titles. Perhaps the most famous alum is Sarah Strong, who was named college basketball’s Freshman of the Year after helping the Connecticut Huskies win the national championship in April.
In June, the school disclosed plans for a two-phase, $98 million expansion that includes a new 59,000-square-foot facility for students in grades six through 12; a 2,000-seat football/soccer stadium with a turf, field house and press box; a new elementary and pre-school building with space for administration and other staff; six additional athletic fields and an expanded strength and conditioning area for athletes.
A four-page prospectus detailed the project, which would rely on a capital campaign supported by parents, the community and local businesses.
Raising tuition at private schools benefiting from Opportunity Scholarship funding isn’t unique to Grace Christian. A June report by Public Schools First NC found several schools that raised tuition to match the amount given through the scholarship program and cited evidence of schools giving admissions preference to families who applied for vouchers. The report cited Grace Christian School’s success in tapping the program. (Some N.C. private schools in larger cities charge annual tuition topping $30,000.)
COMEBACK STORY
Grace Chapel Church is a nondenominational congregation that has about 650 members, according to its tax filing. It has overcome some rocky financial times over the past decade. In 2014, church leaders filed a report with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office claiming former pastor Rudy Holland had embezzled $200,000 from the church. Holland stepped down two months before the allegations went public. He was the target of a previous embezzlement investigation in the 1980s, involving more than $400,000 at a church he founded in Virginia.
At the time of Holland’s departure, Grace had debt of nearly $10 million, according to former teacher Ramona Willett. It hadn’t paid its mortgage in months and was “years behind” on paying Social Security taxes for its employees, she says.
In 2015, three former Grace Chapel Church employees were arrested on separate felony embezzlement charges, some going back as far as 2006. Two employees were charged with taking more than $43,000 and $133,000 respectively and a third employee was charged with withdrawals topping $177,000 in 2014. The first two pleaded guilty, were sentenced to felony probation, and were ordered to pay back the money. The third employee spent 565 days in jail before entering an Alford plea in 2017 and has paid back $360 of the $170,000.
Holland was never charged. He is a ministry representative for the National Center for Life and Liberty, a nonprofit legal ministry based in Florida.
Murr took over as senior pastor in October 2014 after serving as student pastor for the previous 14 years. Grace Chapel is having record Sunday worship attendance, Murr said in a March sermon. It now makes its financial reports available to members with passwords.
In a sermon last year, Murr recounted memories “when we weren’t a financially healthy church. I remember the mistakes that we made, things that caused great harm and hurt the body of Christ and hurt the heart of God. I’m so thankful today that we’re a financially healthy church. Not every church can say that.”
Roberto Montero’s oldest child started attending Grace Christian shortly after the embezzlement controversy. His family had “nothing but positive” experiences until 2023, when he noticed significant discrepancies in billing for his 6-year-old daughter’s tuition. He believes he was overcharged by at least $2,500 for the 2024-2025 school year.
Montero said he also complained to Murr and school leaders about the tuition hike and the requirement of applying for an Opportunity Scholarship. The school responded by putting a block on his family’s account, meaning his daughter had to use cash to buy breakfast, lunch, snacks or anything unless until his balance cleared.
“In my 10 years of supporting Grace Christian, I have never been late on a payment,” says Montero, who works in finance. “The only change was that I refused to endorse incorrect numbers. Retaliation came immediately, threatening to charge daily late fees until I endorsed the scholarship and denying my 6-year-old from being able to purchase food.”
“Other parents told me they saw the same questionable charges but were too afraid to press the school and administration for answers,” he says. “Families worry that if they challenge leadership, their children may be treated differently. That kind of fear should never exist in a school that claims to serve families ‘in the name of Christ.’” He hasn’t recovered the $2,500.
NCSEAA rules governing the Opportunity Scholarship Program, published in 2016 and amended in 2018, don’t mention the issue of tying school applications with the scholarships. But the optics of making such a rule while tuition is soaring and announcing a major capital campaign aren’t good, says Jane Wettach, a clinical professor and expert in education law at Duke University School of Law.
“It was contemplated that this would happen,” says Wettach, who wrote a study on the state’s school voucher program in 2014. “There’s nothing in the law that would prevent it. And it’s a predictable result of the way the program was designed.”
While the program has widespread support among state lawmakers, the expansion has been built into budget bills with no “up-or-down” votes on the issue, she says.
“The way the proponents of both the voucher program and private schools see it, these are private contracts between parents and the school. If parents don’t like the arrangement [increased tuition], they don’t have to send their kids there.”
Wettach echoes former Gov. Roy Cooper’s view that the scholarship program is less about “school choice” and more about shuffling state funds to help make private schools bigger and better. Cooper campaigned against the voucher program, though polls show substantial support for school choice. About 42% of applications last year came from families who were too wealthy to apply in previous years.
This year, Grace Christian purchased 20 acres next to its existing campus, and constructed a center for pre-kindergarten students. Last year, the state agreed to fund $5 million to extend sewer lines from Sanford’s city limits to the adjacent campus.
PUBLIC SCHOOL CHALLENGES
Like peers across the state, Lee County’s 9,000-student public school system is dealing with high teacher turnover rates and underperforming schools. Overcrowding is also a concern with about 10,000 homes being built or planned in the Sanford area over the next five years. The growth reflects expansion plans by local employers and hopes that automaker VinFast’s assembly plant in adjacent Chatham County will come to fruition
Performance is also an issue. Two of the district’s 16 schools earned “A” or “B” grades in the most recent North Carolina School Report Cards report. Four earned a “D” and a middle school received an “F” on the report.
The county struggles to offer competitive incentives for teachers, Alan Rummel, the school board’s vice chairman, told the commissioners in June. But the county agreed to fund only $840,000 of the district’s $3.6 million plan for increased compensation for classified staff members and other improvements.
Public schools in North Carolina are funded through federal, state and local allotments. The state portion covers teacher pay on a state salary schedule, while county funding helps cover supplements.
Lee County public schools received about $115 million in
funding last year, with $73 million, or 64%, coming from the state
and $20 million, or 17%, from county government. That totals more than $12,700 per student, or slightly more than the state average of about $12,500.
Meanwhile, state funding through the scholarship program was about $5,300 per Grace student. Indeed, the General Assembly reported in June that the program provided $10 million in statewide savings. Proponents of vouchers also say more money for public schools hasn’t led to improved performance, noting fewer than half of third-graders are proficient at reading.
Wettach says the underlying issue is insufficient support overall. “Every single penny going toward a voucher could be going to a public school. Even if you took all the money going toward private schools and put it toward public schools, they’d still be underfunded,” she says. “There’s no question that our public schools are deeply in need of more funding, and the state legislature is failing to do so.”
Critics of the voucher program say it is further segregating education in North Carolina. In 2014, 51% of voucher applicants were Black, and 27% were white, according to the Public Schools First NC nonprofit. In 2023, only 19% were Black, and 63% were white. About 80% of Grace Christian students are white, while minority students make up more than two-thirds of Lee County’s public school enrollment, according to U.S. News & World Report.
In August, just before the new school year kicked off, Montero decided to pull his daughter from Grace Christian. It was not an easy decision.
“It was the only way to stand by my principles and protect my family,” he says. “The NCSEAA’s oversight mechanisms are weak, and Grace Christian exploits the gaps. …. Children should attend schools that embody principles such as integrity, fairness and accountability. The lack of responsiveness undermines the intended purpose of the Opportunity Scholarship Program, which is to prioritize the needs of students rather than institutions.” ■
Billy Liggett is a writer and editor based in Sanford. Portions of this story appeared in The Rant newspaper, which he co-founded.
