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Not every student will board a spiffy yellow bus as the 2009-10 back-to-school season kicks off. Some will sit school out at home — as will three of our grand-boys.

As he prepped for a Home School Debate and Speech Tournament this past spring, I asked our middle home-schooler, “Do you usually come in well under the 10-minute time limit?”

“No,” he replied, “I usually come in at nine minutes and 45 seconds.”

His was a biographical speech about Winston Churchill. He had done well with it before, a good sign that he did not come in at 10 minutes and five seconds. In his league, coming in too short indicates a lack of material. Coming in too long indicates a lack of preparation, rudeness and sparse invitations to future tournaments.

His brothers were fine-tuning speeches on their heroes, George Washington and Theodore Roosevelt. Nine minutes and 45 seconds was more norm than coincidence, almost like family tradition.

If DNA is involved, it certainly isn’t mine. I could speak on my hero, Dan Marino, for five minutes at the most.

This was a Fayetteville event, with participants from South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina.

I’ve judged a few speeches and debates. Selecting winners is always a challenge. Not so when hobnobbing with home-school parents, grands and guardians — they’re all winners.

These people pay taxes providing for public schools, then home-school their children. What’s missing here?

One thing NOT missing is a top-notch education. Home-schoolers routinely test and grade higher than their public school peers.

Socialization is often touted as a weak link in the home-school paradigm. Had the Fayetteville bunch been any more social, I may not have survived Thursday through Saturday.

This home-school prayer isn’t far-fetched, “Dear Lord, please un-socialize my home-schooler!”

A big joke on the N.C. homeschool circuit is the public school teachers’ objection to a pay cut proposed by the governor. In the same vein, home-schoolers aren’t overly concerned about teacher layoffs.

Something else not missing at home school is bathroom privileges upon demand. The daughter of family friends attends a Guilford County high school. This is her senior year of never using the school restroom.

After 30 years of volunteering with Junior Achievement in local public schools, I gave it up last year. I could no longer control the students. An empathetic teacher thanked me for trying.

From the school of which all three of our children graduated, the teacher was too proud to say it, so I will say it for her: “I can’t control them either, but I have to make a living!”

These critical looks aside, our public schools are alive — if not entirely well — seeing as how I am a public school product.

Home-schooling is growing by leaps and bounds and is represented in each of our state’s 100 counties. According to the N.C. Department of Administration, the number of home-schoolers almost quadrupled between 1998 and 2008, from 18,415 to 71,566.

Wake County leads the home-school student count with 3,548, followed by Mecklenburg with 2,866, Buncombe with 1,538 and Guilford with 1,466.

The average home school consists of two students, but if the Virginia family I met in Fayetteville is representative, the average home school in the commonwealth might be higher. This family had 10 children under 20 and all will be, or have been, home-schooled.

In another life, my wife and I RV’ed full-time. We met numerous families traveling the country, RV-schooling as they traveled. In a hinterland campfire, I burned a small bag of old records.

I should have stopped with the old records and rescued the obviously recyclable plastic bag. A virtuous home-schooler dashed from his RV and carefully explained to me the devastating environmental impact of burning plastic bags.

There are a few things missing in home schools. Dropouts come to mind.

Parent involvement routinely produces better students, whatever the mode of education.

Parents, grands and guardians I met at Fayetteville are living this evidence.

Without argument, homeschooling has its problems and isn’t for everyone. The same thing can be said for public schools.

I don’t know why, but my grandson asked the judge for the time of his Winston Churchill speech. “Nine minutes and 45 seconds.”

Contact Harry Thetford at htthetford@aol.com