The stuff you'd Google at midnight, answered straight — no sales pitch, just what we'd tell a friend.
The honest answer to the question every homeschool parent asks at 2am — and it's not the one about your degree.
Big fearsYou can, and for about three weeks it works better than you expect. What breaks after that, the independent research that measured it, and a 20-minute test you can run tonight for free.
Texas-specificNo registration, no testing, no certification required. What Texas law actually asks of you, plainly explained.
Day-to-dayYou don't need a 7-hour school day. Here's what a real, workable schedule looks like — and why less is often more.
Big fearsThe question every relative asks at Thanksgiving. What the actual research says, and what really determines the answer.
Day-to-dayYou don't have to quit your job. Here's what a working parent's homeschool day actually needs to cover.
Texas-specificThis isn't a one-way door. What actually happens if you ever need to switch back, and how to keep it painless.
BudgetReal numbers on curriculum, supplies, and extras — and what it looks like against private school and a hired tutor.
Special needsWhat actually happens to the IEP in Texas, honestly explained — and why one-on-one pacing helps a lot of kids who were struggling in a room of 25.
Day-to-dayYou don't need three separate school days. How families actually run it — and the real thing that burns parents out.
Getting startedThe curriculum aisle is the first place new homeschool parents freeze. How to actually pick one, without needing a philosophy degree first.
Texas-specificYou'll hear the word constantly in your first month. What a co-op actually is, what it isn't, and how to find one.
Texas-specificShort answer: no. What Texas law actually says about testing your homeschooled kid, and why some families choose to test anyway.
Getting startedCurriculum philosophy is one decision. How your specific kid absorbs information is a different, more useful one.
Texas-specificTEFA is real, it's already paid out for this school year, and most families who have it haven't spent a dollar of it yet.
Big fearsIf you're picturing homeschool as eight hours of fighting, here's the part nobody tells you: it usually gets easier, not harder.
Texas-specificNo law says you have to track attendance or save a single worksheet. Here's why you'll wish you had, and what's actually worth keeping.
Out-of-stateVirginia, New York, and every state with yearly requirements: pick the curriculum that satisfies your state, upload it, and the teacher teaches yours. With receipts.
Texas-specificYou don't need to wait for the semester to end. The one letter worth sending, and why it protects you later.
Out-of-stateTwo filings, one progress check, no mystery. The August 15 and August 1 deadlines, your four options, and the hours myth you can stop worrying about.
Out-of-stateThe strictest state in plain English: the July 1 notice, the IHIP, four quarterly reports, the 33rd percentile, and the 900/990 hours nobody explains clearly.
Out-of-stateHalf of what you have read about Pennsylvania describes a law that changed in 2014. The August 1 affidavit, the notary you can skip, the portfolio your district no longer collects, and the June 30 evaluation.
Out-of-stateOhio deleted the testing, the hours, and the credentials in 2023. What is left is one short notice — and the acknowledgment letter it earns you is worth $250 a child and free college tuition.
Out-of-stateCalifornia never wrote a homeschool law. You homeschool by running a private school: one affidavit every October, no testing, no credential, and four doors to choose between. One of them pays you and takes your curriculum choice with it.
Out-of-stateOne notice, filed once. A portfolio kept two years. One evaluation a year, five ways to satisfy it. And the $8,000 PEP scholarship that quietly stops you from being a home education student at all.
Out-of-stateEveryone remembers the September 1 declaration. Almost nobody keeps the annual progress report or the test every three years, and both live entirely in your house until the day someone asks.
Out-of-stateThe rare state with an office that can actually ask to see your records. Which two it can ask for, the May and June filing trap, and the $9,000 ESA+ money homeschoolers really can get.
Out-of-stateNo notice, no testing, no credential, no records sent anywhere. Which makes the one optional form the most misunderstood paper in the state, because it is the only way into band, dual enrollment and special education services.
Out-of-stateAn undefined word at the center of the law, 180 days, and one attendance record two officials may request. Plus the withdrawal form that decides whether your teenager can get a driver's license.
Out-of-stateTwo legal doors, and the one you pick decides who keeps the records and who signs the diploma. The grade 5, 7 and 9 testing, both ways to satisfy it, and why the diploma is really a college scholarship question.
Out-of-state1,000 hours, 600 core, 400 at your own table. The plan book and portfolio the statute names, the new home school versus FPE school split, and the 2025 law that opened public school sports to homeschoolers.
Out-of-stateThe state makes you test every year and never asks to see the score. The four ways to become a qualified parent, the September 15 declaration, and the part-time public school right almost nobody uses.
Out-of-stateOne notarized affidavit to your county, five subjects, no testing and no reporting ever. Plus the ESA money that is real, and the fact that taking it means you are not a homeschooler anymore.
Out-of-stateYour notice of intent does not have to go to your own district. 172 days at four hours, evaluation five times in twelve years, the thirteenth percentile floor, and the 2026 law that just changed part-time enrichment programs.
Out-of-stateThere is no homeschool law in Alabama, only three exemptions from compulsory attendance. The statute forbids the state to regulate church schools, the private tutor route is the strictest of the three, and the clock stops at sixteen.
Out-of-stateThree legal doors, and only one puts a school board in the room. Which option requires the state test, which one lets a board decide your child's placement, and why the ESTF scholarship means you are legally not homeschooling.
Out-of-stateThe right is written into the state constitution, and the state asks you for nothing at all. Why the 180 days every guide repeats is no longer the law, and how the $1,000 tax credit works with no application.
Out-of-stateKentucky has no homeschool law, only a private school law, and your kitchen table is the school. One letter a year, records you keep and never mail, and the statute that was rewritten twice while the state's own guidance kept quoting the old one.
Out-of-stateThe whole law is one sentence pointing at a checklist written for private schools. One form to the state every October, 875 hours (fewer than the public schools owe), and the definition that keeps the state out of your house and out of your tax return.
Out-of-stateMinnesota makes you test your child every year and never asks for the score. What it does instead: your superintendent files a compliance verdict about your family every December. Plus the free tests your district owes you and $1,500 a child in refundable credit.
Out-of-stateIllinois has no homeschool statute, no registration, no testing and no reporting. It has one clause in the truancy law and a 1950 Supreme Court case. And the September 1 notification deadline several guides are printing right now comes from a bill that never passed.
Out-of-stateA 15-day notice, eight subjects, and a portfolio reviewed twice a year at a time you both agree to. Plus the umbrella route that replaces district oversight entirely, and the one sentence that forbids your school system from adding a single requirement of its own.
Out-of-stateNew Jersey has no homeschool statute at all. No notice, no approval, no curriculum review, no testing, no records a district may demand. Just eleven words inside the truancy law, the Department of Education is unusually clear about what they mean, and seven bills in Trenton would change it.
Out-of-stateThe only state where someone has to approve your plan before you start, and your superintendent is that someone. What districts may ask for, what they may not require, the short and very old subject list, and the special education entitlement Massachusetts gives homeschooled kids that almost nowhere else does.
Out-of-stateConnecticut has never required a form, a test, or anyone's approval. In May 2026 that changed, on a clock almost nobody is reporting correctly, and the annual portfolio requirement everyone read about was struck out before the vote. The real dates, the one sentence that governs today, and the line at the bottom of the state's own form that tells your superintendent to stay out of it.
Out-of-stateOn May 7, 2025 Utah deleted the signed affidavit, the criminal background attestation and the annual certificate from its homeschool statute, and most guides still tell you to file all three. What you actually send, the four things your school board may not do, the one place a Utah homeschool family still signs an affidavit, and why the scholarship pays $4,000 or $6,000 rather than the $8,000 everyone quotes.
Out-of-stateLouisiana lets you homeschool two ways and almost every guide calls it a paperwork preference. It is not. Four things turn on which one you pick, including whether the diploma you sign is recognized by the state and whether your child can get TOPS. Plus the ACT surcharge on home study students that expired after 2024-2025 while the state's own Q&A still says it applies.
Out-of-stateOne form by August 15, no testing since 2015, and three separate statutes that let your homeschooled kid take a public school class for a real transcript grade, try out for the team, and get college credit the district cannot charge you for. Plus the $7,208 account, and the questions the state deleted in 2017 that guides still tell you to answer.
Out-of-stateOne page by September 15, six questions, and then the state leaves. The reason is a paragraph at the end of the compulsory attendance law that forbids any state agency from touching your program. Plus the 2026 bill that would have ended all of it, and the two public school doors that open in opposite directions.
Out-of-stateIowa has three separate legal ways to homeschool, and picking one decides whether your kid can wrestle, keep an IEP, or borrow a textbook. One administrative rule prices the whole trade. Plus the 2026 law that made a diploma you signed count for employment and licensure, retroactively.
Out-of-stateA Notice of Intent, 175 days, and one assessment filed every September 1. Then Maine tells you it issues no diploma, no transcript, no grades and no credits, and four other people ask your family for exactly those. Plus the free college credit statute written for homeschoolers in 2013, the 2026 act that is not in the state's own published code yet, and the participation statute that gives a private school student more than it gives your child.
Out-of-stateIn May 2025 Montana struck the immunization-records duty and the building health-and-safety duty out of the home school half of its homeschool statute, and county notification forms across the state still print both. What you actually owe is four lines. Plus the part-time public school enrollment your trustees must grant, the sports statute that forbids the principal from testing your child, and the first six college credits free.
Out-of-stateOn July 1, 2026 New Hampshire repealed the notice, the portfolio, the annual evaluation and the advisory council in one act. The rules demanding all of it are still published, the old state FAQ is still what search hands you, and every requirement the state deleted is still in force word for word for any family that takes the Education Freedom Account money.
Out-of-stateOne letter to your ESD, tests at grades 3, 5, 8 and 10, and that is the whole burden. Then a scholarship office asks for three documents covering the last nine years, and a cumulative GPA is one of them. Plus the two errors in the state's own homeschool FAQ, both running against families, and the Oregon Promise grant that names the homeschool statute by number.
Out-of-stateNo notice, no testing, no records, no registration, ever. Then three different Idaho agencies each ask for a document covering years nobody was watching: a test score for sports, a portfolio for the $5,000 tax credit, and a parent-signed transcript for the state scholarship. Plus the $4,625 in Advanced Opportunities money homeschoolers can actually reach, and the licensing law Idaho passed in March.
Out-of-stateOne free form you file once and never again, no testing at any age, and a purpose section that says out loud the registration is not approval. Plus the sentence on the state's own homeschool fact sheet telling families they will probably need a GED, and the Board of Regents regulation that has said shall admit for four years and names home school by name.
Out-of-stateOne notice you file once and probably never again, no testing of any kind at any age, and a district that may not even ask you for more. Plus the one page of paper Nevada hands you on the way in that your eighteen year old needs to claim a scholarship worth up to 0,000, and the sports rule that quietly requires grades in a state that requires no records at all.
Out-of-stateOne notice of intent that never renews, an assessment you only send in four grades, and four separate legal routes the state now recognizes. Plus the Hope Scholarship that opened to existing homeschool families for the first time this year, at an expected $5,435.62 a child, on a sliding deadline that cuts the award every few weeks you wait.
Out-of-stateThree legal requirements and no test, no portfolio and no curriculum approval. The parts that decide your child's next four years are elsewhere: a funding formula that pays your district to let them play three activities a year, a dual credit door that closes on their 18th birthday, and a scholarship gated by the form you file every August.
Out-of-stateRhode Island does not take a filing. Your town's elected school committee votes on your program, and the Department of Education says it does not supervise any of it. The state says approval comes first and the Commissioner has so held; three of the four district policies we read say you may begin on submission. Plus the seven subjects in the statute against the sentence in the Curriculum chapter that reaches much further, the free textbook loan almost nobody claims, the second exit door the 2022 General Assembly opened, and the quarterly grades the athletic league wants from a state that never asked you for one.
Out-of-stateTwo filings a year and no testing, no portfolio and no curriculum approval. The enrollment one is due September 30, and two of the Department of Education's own three homeschool pages still print the old October 5 date; miss it and the state closes your school and marks your child withdrawn. Plus the report card your teenager needs for a learner's permit, free driver education, the sports act passed unanimously in July, and the three state scholarships that name home schooled students in the statute.