Alaska Homeschool Requirements: One Line of Law, and the Allotment That Comes With a Public School Plan

Alaska's rules sit in Title 14 of the Alaska Statutes. Below is what the attendance law, the private school law, and the correspondence and allotment laws say, in the Legislature's own text, alongside the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development's own words and the Alaska Supreme Court's 2025 decision on the allotments.

The short version

• Independent homeschooling has no paperwork. No notice, no testing, no required subjects, no teacher qualifications. The exemption is one line of the attendance statute.
• Compulsory attendance runs from age seven to sixteen, with a special rule if you enroll a six year old in first grade.
• There are two other routes: running your home school as a private or religious school under the state's private school law, or enrolling in a public correspondence program.
• Correspondence programs can give each student a yearly allotment. In exchange, the student follows an individual learning plan approved by a certificated teacher, takes the statewide assessments, and spends the money only on nonsectarian materials and services the district approves.
• The Alaska Supreme Court upheld the allotment law in 2025. Narrower questions, including private school tuition, went back to the trial court and were still open as of the state's June 2026 litigation report.
• High school activities: the access law covers correspondence students and accredited home school programs, not every homeschool.
• The Alaska Performance Scholarship counts a home school program as a high school only if the Department has approved it, so ask early.

The one line that lets you homeschool

Alaska's compulsory attendance law, AS 14.30.010, starts by requiring every child between seven and 16 to attend the public school in their district. Then subsection (b) lists the exceptions. The twelfth one is yours:

(12) is being educated in the child's home by a parent or legal guardian.

That's the whole of it. The statute asks for no notice to the district, no curriculum, no record, no test, and no particular education for the parent. Alaska's Department of Education draws the line the same way on its alternative schooling options page:

In Alaska, Correspondence programs are district-supported schooling options in the home. "Homeschooling" refers to schooling without district affiliation.

Keep that distinction in mind for the rest of this guide. In Alaska, "homeschooling" and "school at home" can mean two very different legal positions.

Ages, the first grade rule, and the penalty

Attendance is required between seven and 16 years of age. One exception catches families off guard. Under AS 14.30.010(c), if you enroll a six year old in first grade at a public school, the child is then covered by the attendance law. You can still withdraw the child within 60 days after the child is enrolled if first grade isn't serving them, and the law doesn't apply again until age seven.

Under AS 14.30.020, a person who knowingly fails to comply with the attendance law is guilty of a violation, and each five days of unlawful absence is a separate violation.

The private or religious school route

The same statute exempts a child who gets an academic education comparable to that offered by the public schools in the area by one of three means: a private school with certificated teachers, tutoring by a certificated teacher, or a religious or other private school that follows AS 14.45.100 to 14.45.130. If you run a religious or other private school under that last option, the private school law sets the rules:

• an annual notice of enrollment filed with the local superintendent on a Department form, signed by you and the school's chief administrative officer;
• monthly attendance records and a regular schedule of at least 180 days of the year, plus an annual report to the commissioner;
• a nationally standardized test in grades four, six, and eight, covering English grammar, reading, spelling, and mathematics;
• permanent records of immunizations, physical examinations, testing, academic achievement, and courses.

That's more work than the one line above, so it only makes sense if you want what the private school route brings. Plain homeschooling under (b)(12) asks for none of it.

Correspondence programs: school at home, inside the public system

A child enrolled in a full-time program of correspondence study approved by the department is also exempt from attending a building (AS 14.30.010(b)(10)(B)). These programs are run by school districts, some enroll students statewide, and the Department keeps a correspondence school directory. What makes them popular is money. What makes them different from homeschooling is everything that comes with it.

Under AS 14.03.300, every enrolled student gets an annual individual learning plan, developed with you, your child, and a certificated teacher assigned to the student. The plan must:

• be developed with the assistance and approval of that teacher;
• provide for a course of study for the appropriate grade level consistent with state and district standards;
• include an ongoing assessment plan that includes statewide assessments required for public schools;
• be modified if your child is below proficient on a standardized assessment in a core subject;
• include a signed agreement between the teacher and a parent verifying compliance;
• provide for monitoring of each student's work and progress by the teacher.

The allotment and its rules

AS 14.03.310 lets a district or the Department give a parent an annual student allotment for instructional expenses. The statute sets no dollar amount; each program sets its own, so ask yours. Here is what the money can buy:

A parent or guardian may purchase nonsectarian services and materials from a public, private, or religious organization with a student allotment provided under (a) of this section if (1) the services and materials are required for the course of study in the individual learning plan developed for the student under AS 14.03.300; (2) textbooks, services, and other curriculum materials and the course of study (A) are approved by the school district; (B) are appropriate for the student; (C) are aligned to state standards; ...

Three rules from that section are worth knowing before you shop:

• Nonsectarian only. You may buy from a religious organization, but what you buy must be nonsectarian. Faith-based curriculum is still yours to teach; it just can't be paid for with allotment money.
• No paying family. Under 14.03.310(e), the allotment may not be used to pay for services provided to a student by a family member, a list that runs from parents and siblings to grandparents, uncles, and aunts.
• Leftovers go back. Unspent money stays with your child while they're enrolled, and returns to the program if they leave. Materials bought with it can stay with your child if they're the kind a student could keep when leaving a regular school in the district (14.03.300(c)).

None of this is a criticism of the programs. A certificated teacher in your corner and money for supplies are real benefits. But it's a trade: a child in a correspondence program is a public school student with a plan to follow and tests to take, and a family that teaches independently is giving up the money in exchange for full control.

Where the court case stands

In 2024 a superior court judge struck the correspondence and allotment statutes down entirely. On March 28, 2025, the Alaska Supreme Court explained its earlier reversal in State, Department of Education & Early Development v. Alexander (Opinion No. 7759):

It is clear that there are a substantial number of constitutionally valid uses of allotment funds.

And, a few lines later: Striking down the statutes entirely was legal error. Whether allotment money can pay private school tuition is a question the court expressly declined to answer. The court sent the narrower questions back to the trial court and said that anyone challenging a specific use of allotment money has to join the school district that approved that spending. The Attorney General's office told the State Board of Education in its June 4, 2026 litigation report that the case had seen no updates since March 2026. In 2022 the Department's commissioner had already told superintendents that the state constitution does not support paying for sectarian or religious courses or supplanting the public education with a full private school education by paying the tuition for full-time enrollment in a private school. So: the allotment is here and on firm ground, and the edges are still being argued.

Where Kitchen Table School fits

We're not a listed vendor with any Alaska correspondence program yet. If you're in a program, every purchase runs through your learning plan and your district's approval, so ask your program which vendors it has approved before you buy. If you're homeschooling independently, Alaska leaves the what and the how entirely to you.

High school activities

Alaska's activities law, AS 14.30.365, lets a full-time student in grades nine through 12 in an alternative education program that doesn't offer activities join the activities program at a public school: either the one the student would attend based on where you live, or another one if the student shows good cause and that school's governing body approves. Read the definition before you count on it. An alternative education program includes a home school program that is accredited by a recognized accrediting body and certain statewide correspondence schools, but the statute doesn't mention an ordinary independent homeschool. The student must also meet the school's, the district's, and the statewide association's eligibility rules, provide transcripts and proof of full-time enrollment, and claim one school for the whole year. A parallel section, AS 14.45.150, opens private school activities on the same terms. If your teenager wants to play, talk to the school and your program a season ahead.

The Alaska Performance Scholarship

The Alaska Performance Scholarship pays up to $7,000, $5,250, or $3,500 a year at an Alaska college or career program, depending on a student's grade point average or college entrance exam score, and always subject to appropriation. It requires a core curriculum, such as four years each of mathematics, language arts, science, and social studies. For homeschoolers, the definition is the part to read. Under AS 14.43.849, "high school" means a public or accredited secondary school in the state and a home school program that is approved by the department. The older version of the Department's scholarship regulations that we read set out a separate application route, straight to the Department, for students finishing a home-based program. If your student might want this scholarship, call the Department early in high school and ask exactly what approval your program needs, and keep a course record from ninth grade on.

What this actually means for your week

Alaska gives independent homeschooling families a great deal of room: one line of law and nothing to send anyone. That freedom has one cost. When your teenager applies for the Performance Scholarship, or wants to join a correspondence program or a public school later, or you just want to know your child is on track, nobody else has been keeping score.

That is what we built for. Mrs. M teaches your child the core subjects one on one, at their level, and keeps a record of every session as a byproduct of teaching it: which subject, which lesson, what your child worked on, and how they did. Alaska doesn't require that record of independent homeschoolers. You'll be glad to have it anyway. You're still the one who decides what your child learns. We don't promise any particular test score. Nobody honest does.

Curious how this works day to day with your own curriculum? Here's the honest guide to teaching your own curriculum with us, written for every out-of-state family, Alaska included. Since Alaska leaves the record keeping to you, homeschool record keeping is the natural next read. Or see the requirements for every other state.