OUT-OF-STATE FAMILIES

Kansas Homeschool Requirements: One Form, Filed Once, and the Guaranteed University Admission the State's Own Fact Sheet Never Mentions

Kansas asks a homeschooling family for one thing: register your home as a non-accredited private school, once, for free, and you are done forever. No testing, no portfolio, no annual report, no teacher qualification. Then the state's own homeschool fact sheet tells you your child's diploma is not recognized as meeting any requirements and that most colleges will want a GED. That sentence has been out of date for years, and believing it can cost your family a scholarship worth twenty thousand dollars.

The word homeschool does not appear anywhere in the Kansas statutes that govern your family. Kansas has no homeschool law. What it has instead is a definition of a private school that is not accredited, and a homeschool simply is one. That single architectural choice decides almost everything on this page, in both directions: it is why Kansas asks you for so little, and it is why the two biggest doors in the state, university admission and the state's largest workforce scholarship, open on the exact words in the registration statute you filed once and forgot about. This page assembles the whole chain from the state's own text.

The short version

Step 1: the one form, and what it legally is

Kansas compulsory attendance lives at K.S.A. 72-3120. Subsection (a) requires a parent of a child who has reached seven and is under 18, and who has not attained a diploma or an equivalency credential, to have that child regularly enrolled in and attending one of three things. The second is yours:

a private, denominational or parochial school taught by a competent instructor for a period of time which is substantially equivalent to the period of time public school is maintained in the school district in which the private, denominational or parochial school is located

That is the entire legal basis of homeschooling in Kansas. Your home is the private school. You are the competent instructor. Everything else follows from those two facts.

The registration requirement is somewhere else entirely, in a three section act from 1982. K.S.A. 72-4345 supplies the definition that the rest of Kansas law will keep pointing at for the next twenty pages. A private elementary or secondary school, it says, means

an organization which regularly offers education at the elementary or secondary level and attendance at which satisfies the compulsory school attendance laws of this state, but which is not accredited by the state board of education.

Then K.S.A. 72-4346, subsection (a), in one sentence:

The official custodian of every private elementary or secondary school shall register the name and address of the private elementary or secondary school with the state board of education.

The name and the address. That is the filing. You do it through the Department of Education's online registration form, and the Department's non-accredited private schools page says there is no approval process, no review by the State Board, and no cost. It also gives the rule that trips families up:

Only register your home school once.

Not annually. When the school stops existing you go back to the same form and mark it non-active.

The sentence that settles arguments with a district office

Registration gets described, by people on both sides of the question, as though it were licensure. It is not, and the Legislature said why in a purpose section that almost nobody quotes. K.S.A. 72-4347, in full:

The purpose of this act is solely to make available to a school district, an accredited nonpublic school, or a private elementary or secondary school to which a pupil transfers, the name and location of the private elementary or secondary school from which the pupil transferred so that request may be made by the transferee school district, accredited nonpublic school, or private elementary or secondary school for the pupil's records.

Read the word solely. The act exists to route a records request. It does not authorize inspection, approval, curriculum review, or any oversight at all, because the Legislature wrote down what it was for. If anyone tells you the State Board approved your school, or that it could disapprove it, that sentence is the answer and it is short enough to paste into an email.

No confirmation is sent, and there is a separate page for getting one

The Department is blunt about this on the same page:

No confirmation of registration will be sent

It then tells you to make copies of your registration for your own records and for the school your student is leaving. And it runs a second page, Letter of Registration Request, for families who need actual paper.

Request the letter in the year you register, and put it somewhere you will find it in a decade. Not because Kansas will ever ask you for it. Because the state holds your registration and hands it out on request under 72-4346(c), and because two of the biggest financial doors in this state, described further down, are written to open for a graduate of a non-accredited private secondary school as defined in K.S.A. 72-4345. The registration is what puts your family inside that definition. It is the closest thing Kansas gives you to a credential, and it arrives silently.

One more piece of housekeeping the Department flags, and it is the one that generates truancy letters. If your child is leaving a public or accredited school, you must notify that school yourself. KSDE writes that when a student transfers to a non-accredited private school, the school previously attended must be notified by the parent, and that if this step is not completed the school is required by law to report the student as truant. Send it in writing, keep a copy, and note the date.

The two things Kansas actually requires

A competent instructor, and nothing more specific than that

The statute says competent instructor and stops. The Department's own guidance says the same thing in its own words:

Non-accredited private schools are not required to employ teachers who are licensed by the state, but their courses must be taught by competent instructors.

There is no degree requirement, no high school diploma requirement for the parent, no testing of the parent, and no state body that evaluates competence in advance. Kansas has never defined the term by statute or regulation.

A school term substantially equivalent to your own district's

This is the requirement that gets quoted wrong most often, because the benchmark is local, not statewide. Read 72-3120(a)(2) again: substantially equivalent to the period of time public school is maintained in the school district in which the school is located. Your yardstick is the district you live in.

The statutory floor those districts work from is K.S.A. 72-3115, and it has two forms. Subsection (a) sets a term of

not less than 186 school days for pupils attending kindergarten or any of the grades one through 11 and not less than 181 school days for pupils attending grade 12

Subsection (b) lets a district adopt an hours based term instead: not less than 465 school hours for kindergarten, 1,116 for grades one through 11, and 1,086 for grade 12. Subsection (c) lets a district schedule those days or hours on a trimester or quarterly basis.

Two practical notes fall out of reading the actual section. First, senior year is shorter, by five days or thirty hours, and the Department's homeschool fact sheet gives only the grades one through 11 figures. If you are running a twelfth grader on the 186 day number you are doing more than Kansas asks. Second, because the comparison is to your district, your district's board adopted school calendar is the document that answers the question, and it is a public record published on the district website every spring. Save the one for your year. It is a better answer than any number on any homeschool blog, including this one.

What Kansas does not require, stated plainly because the absence is the point

We read the compulsory attendance article and the non-accredited private school act end to end looking for these. They are not there. Kansas does not require standardized testing at any grade, ever. It does not require a portfolio, an annual assessment, an outside evaluator, a certified teacher review, attendance records filed with anyone, a log of instructional hours, curriculum approval, a scope and sequence, notice of subjects taught, immunization records for a child who is only homeschooled, a home visit, or any qualification for the parent beyond the word competent. There is nothing to renew and no one to report to.

The Department confirms the curriculum half in its own voice, and it is worth quoting because it cuts both ways:

Nonaccredited private schools are responsible for acquiring their own books and curriculum materials. The State Department of Education does not supply books, curriculum materials or technical assistance for nonaccredited private schools.

Kansas does publish curricular standards, and the Department is careful to say they are guidelines that may be used to develop curriculum and that the standards are not the curriculum. Nobody is going to check yours against them.

Kansas law does not contain the word, and a 2026 bill to change that died in committee

The Department states it outright on its own fact sheet: Kansas does not specifically authorize home instruction or homeschooling by state statute, but it does recognize non-accredited private schools. That is not a technicality. It is why every answer on this page has to be assembled out of statutes about something else.

In January 2026 the Senate Committee on Education introduced Senate Bill 338, which would have amended K.S.A. 72-4345 to fold a home school into the definition of a private elementary or secondary school and, for the first time, to define one. Its proposed subsection (d) would have defined a home school as

a nonaccredited nonpublic school where a parent or person acting as parent, as such terms are defined in K.S.A. 72-3127, and amendments thereto, directs the private instruction of such parent's or person's child.

A hearing was held on January 21, 2026. Proponents included the Home School Legal Defense Association, the Christian Home Education Coalition of Kansas, Midwest Parent Educators and Kansas Home Educators. Opponents included the Kansas Association of School Boards, United School Administrators, the Kansas PTA and Game on for Kansas Schools. The Kansas State Department of Education testified neutral. The Legislature's own bill page now marks the bill Died, with the committee stage never cleared.

The honest counterweight: Kansas runs two year sessions, and 2026 was the second year of the 2025 to 2026 biennium, so this particular bill is finished rather than parked. Bills like it come back. Before each school year, spend two minutes at the Legislature's own site rather than trusting a summary, including this one.

Truancy: the notice a district owes you before it ever calls a county attorney

This is the fear that brings Kansas families to a search engine at midnight, and the statute is more protective than its reputation. K.S.A. 72-3121 is the truancy machinery. Subsection (b) is the part that matters to you:

Whenever a child is required by law to attend school, and the child is not enrolled in a public or nonpublic school, the child shall be considered to be not attending school as required by law

A registered non-accredited private school is a nonpublic school. That is the entire defense, and it is why the registration and the withdrawal notice both matter on the way out the door.

Then subsection (d)(1) does something districts do not always volunteer. Before any report is made to the Department for Children and Families or to a county or district attorney, the designated employee

shall serve written notice thereof, by personal delivery or by first class mail, upon a parent or person acting as parent of the child.

The notice has to say that continued failure to attend without a valid excuse will result in a report, and you get until the next school day after personal delivery, or three school days after mailing, to attend or to give an acceptable response. So a Kansas family that gets a letter has a defined window and a specific thing to say in it: this child is enrolled in a registered non-accredited private school, here is the registration date, here is the withdrawal notice I sent you. Put it in writing and keep the copy.

One observation we are going to hand you as a question rather than an answer, because it is what the text says and we cannot find anyone who has resolved it. Subsection (g) of the same statute reads:

The provisions of this act shall apply to both public and nonpublic schools.

and the sentence before it defines board of education, for that section, to mean the board of a school district or the governing authority of a nonpublic school. Subsection (a) then requires each board of education to designate reporting employees by September 1 each year. We have found no KSDE guidance, no regulation and no reported case applying that designation duty to a family running a non-accredited private school out of its own house, and none of the Department's homeschool material mentions any such duty. We are not telling you that you owe one, because that is a legal conclusion and it is not ours to draw. We are telling you the sentence is in the statute, that nobody appears to have addressed it, and that the office to ask is the Department at homeschool@ksde.gov. Ask in writing and keep the reply.

Part time public school: your district shall allow it

Most states leave part time enrollment to local discretion, which in practice means a shrug. Kansas wrote a shall. It is subsection (h) of the compulsory attendance statute itself, which is the last place a family would think to look:

Each board of education of a school district shall allow any child to enroll part-time in the school district to allow the student to attend any courses, programs or services offered by the school district

The conditions are three, and a registered homeschool meets all of them: the child is also enrolled in a non-accredited private elementary or secondary school under K.S.A. 72-4345, the child requests to enroll part time, and the child meets the age of eligibility in K.S.A. 72-3118.

Read the object of that sentence. Not sports. Not electives. Any courses, programs or services offered by the school district. Chemistry with a lab. Band. Speech therapy. The welding shop.

Then subsection (h)(2) hands you the tool that makes it usable. Each board

shall adopt a policy regarding the part-time enrollment of students pursuant to this subsection and shall publish such policy on the school district's website.

It also says the board shall make a good faith attempt to accommodate scheduling requests but is not required to make adjustments to accommodate every such request. That is the honest limit: the enrollment is a duty, the timetable is not. Go read your district's published policy before you call anyone. If it is not on the website, the statute says it should be, and that is a reasonable first sentence in an email to the superintendent.

Sports and activities: a statute, an affidavit, and one trap that costs a season

Kansas opened public school activities to homeschooled students in 2023, and amended the law again in 2024 and 2025. K.S.A. 72-7121 opens:

Any student who meets the requirements of this section shall be permitted to participate in any activities offered by a school district that are regulated, supervised, promoted and developed by the activities association referred to in K.S.A. 72-7114, and amendments thereto.

That association is the Kansas State High School Activities Association, and its 2026-27 Handbook prints the statute in full under the heading Non-Enrolled Student Eligibility.

Subsection (a)(2) adds that a participating student shall also be permitted to participate in district sponsored events, ceremonies, programs or other functions directly related to the activity. The banquet, the team photo, the awards night. A board may adopt policies about the ones not directly related.

What you have to do

Subsection (b)(1) is the checklist: be a resident of the district, be enrolled and attending a nonpublic school, comply with K.S.A. 72-6262 before participating, meet the association's age and eligibility rules that do not conflict with the statute, pay the same fees other participants pay, and

seeks participation at the appropriate school of the school district that corresponds to where such student resides within the school district's respective school attendance boundaries established by the board of education of the school district

That last one means the school you are zoned for, not the one with the better team.

K.S.A. 72-6262 is the immunization statute, and it is the condition families are most often blindsided by, because a homeschooled child in Kansas otherwise has no immunization filing at all. It requires certification from a physician or local health department that the pupil has received the required tests and inoculations. Subsection (b) provides two alternatives: an annual written statement signed by a licensed physician stating that the tests or inoculations would seriously endanger the life or health of the child, or a written statement signed by one parent or guardian that the child is an adherent of a religious denomination whose religious teachings are opposed to such tests or inoculations. We are stating what the statute provides, not advising which line applies to your family. Handle it in the spring, not in August.

The academic rule, and why Kansas is unusual here

In most states the athletic association's academic eligibility rule is the one thing in the entire legal system that forces a homeschooling family to issue grades, and it cannot be satisfied backward. Kansas wrote the opposite. Subsection (c)(1) says a home schooled student is deemed to meet any academic eligibility requirement if the student

is maintaining satisfactory progress towards achievement or promotion to the next grade level

and a parent, teacher or organization providing the instruction submits an affidavit or transcript to the association saying so. Then subsection (c)(2):

Upon submission of an affidavit, the student attending a home school shall be deemed to meet any academic eligibility requirements established by the activities association and shall retain such academic eligibility during the activity season for which such affidavit is submitted.

Deemed, and retained for the season. No grading period, no minimum number of passing classes, no grade point average. A parent's signed statement does the whole job. If you have read that Kansas homeschoolers need report cards to play, that was true of other states and never of this one.

The trap, and it is expensive

Subsection (g) is the sentence to read twice if you are thinking about pulling a child out mid year. A student enrolled in a school operated by a school district who withdraws and then enrolls in an accredited private school, a nonpublic elementary or secondary school as defined in K.S.A. 72-4345, or a virtual school

shall not be eligible for full participation in any activities offered by such school district immediately following such student's withdrawal

in accordance with the association's academic eligibility policies, unless the student was already eligible for full participation on the date of withdrawal and participates at the school from which the student withdrew. Limited participation may still be permitted under the district's and the association's policies.

So the general right in subsection (a) does not run in a straight line for a child who just left that district's school. If sports are part of why you are switching, ask the school's athletic director and the association, in writing, before you withdraw rather than after. The date of withdrawal is doing legal work in that sentence, and you only get to choose it once.

Two more provisions worth knowing

Subsection (i) is short and it is the one to quote if you meet resistance:

It shall be unlawful for any school district or the activities association referred to in K.S.A. 72-7114, and amendments thereto, to discriminate against any student who meets the requirements of this section based on such student's enrollment status.

And K.S.A. 72-7122 runs the other way, protecting a student who is primarily enrolled in a nonpublic school and takes some public school classes: the association shall not prohibit that student from participating in any activity available through the primary nonpublic school enrollment.

New this year, and no other guide carries it yet. Senate Bill 382 of 2026 added a section letting a nonpublic school permit a student enrolled in a non-accredited private school to participate in that nonpublic school's association activities, if the nonpublic school's governing body allows it, the student is a Kansas resident, and the ordinary fees and tryout rules are met. The governing body of the nonpublic school determines academic eligibility. The Legislature's bill page shows it Signed by Governor, and KSHSAA prints the new section in its 2026-27 Handbook as current law. For a Kansas homeschool family, that means the local Christian or parochial school is now a second lawful door to a team, alongside the public one.

The association answers to the State Board, and its records are open

K.S.A. 72-7114 is the statute that lets KSHSAA exist, and it contains a leverage point most families never hear about. Subsection (a)(4) requires the association to

Submit to the state board of education, for its approval or disapproval prior to adoption, any amendments, additions, alterations or modifications of its articles of incorporation or bylaws.

and then adds that if the state board disapproves one, the same shall not be adopted. Subsections (a)(6) and (a)(7) make the association subject to the Kansas open meetings law and the open records law. A private association writing rules about your child is answerable to an elected State Board and to a public records request. That is not nothing, and it is invisible from inside the handbook.

College admission: the correction that is worth the most money on this page

Here is the sentence a Kansas homeschooling family reads, on the Department of Education's own Homeschooling In Kansas fact sheet, revised February 12, 2024:

These diplomas are not recognized by the State of Kansas as meeting any requirements. The State does not issue diplomas.

And then, under the heading Entering College:

Most institutions of higher education will require a Graduate Equivalency Diploma (GED) or other criteria to be met for admission.

That is the most discouraging paragraph any state education agency prints about homeschooling, it is the first thing a nervous Kansas parent finds, and it does not match the regulations the Kansas Board of Regents adopted in 2020 and amended in February 2022.

What the regulations actually say

The Board of Regents sets admission standards for the six state universities under K.S.A. 76-717, whose subsection (a)(2) already promised a Kansas resident graduating from a non-accredited private secondary school admission on an ACT composite of at least 21. Subsection (f) lets the Board adopt regulations that differ, so the regulations are what govern. The Board publishes them on its Qualified Admissions Rules and Regulations page.

Start with the definitions. K.A.R. 88-29c-1, subsection (m), defines non-accredited private secondary school by cross-reference and then adds seven words that decide everything:

This term may include a home school.

Now K.A.R. 88-29c-5, subsection (c), which governs Emporia State, Fort Hays State, Kansas State, Pittsburg State and Wichita State:

Each state educational institution shall admit any Kansas resident under the age of 21 who meets the following requirements:

The three requirements, quoted one at a time because the regulation prints them as a numbered list. The applicant has graduated from a non-accredited private secondary school; has achieved a composite score or a superscore on the ACT of at least 21; and has achieved a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.0 on a 4.0 scale on all transferable college credit hours. That last one only bites if your child took college courses in high school.

Shall admit. Not may consider. And the word GED does not appear in that subsection at all.

The Board says the same thing to families in its own Qualified Admissions flyer, dated December 2022, under a heading that reads Homeschool and Unaccredited High School:

Freshman applicants, under the age of 21, who are homeschooled or graduate from an unaccredited high school will be guaranteed admission to the six state universities by achieving an ACT score equivalent to those outlined above, per each university.

Two Kansas state agencies, and the one a homeschooling family actually reads is the stale one. This is the kind of error that runs against the family: an overstated obligation costs you money you did not owe, an understated option costs you a door you thought was closed. So here is the plan rather than the complaint.

The University of Kansas is different, and the difference is a grade point average

KU has its own regulation series. K.A.R. 88-29d-5, subsection (c), also says the university shall admit a Kansas resident under 21, and its first requirement is that the applicant

graduated from a non-accredited private secondary school with a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.0 on a 4.0 scale

plus the ACT of 21 and the 2.0 on transferable college hours. KU requires a homeschool grade point average. The other five do not.

That is a five minute reading of a regulation and it changes what you do for four years. If KU is on the list, your homeschool transcript needs real course grades and a computed cumulative average, kept as you go. If it is not, the ACT alone carries the whole thing.

KU also has a review committee route at subsection (e) for applicants who miss the numbers, and its listed factors include coursework completed, grade trend, the degree of difficulty of the coursework, academic potential and successful completion of advanced placement, international baccalaureate and dual credit coursework while in high school. That is a may rather than a shall, and it is worth knowing that dual credit is named in it.

The asymmetry we owe you, because nobody else prints it

A Kansas resident under 21 graduating from an accredited high school gets two doors at Emporia State, Fort Hays State, Pittsburg State and Wichita State: an ACT composite or superscore of 21, or a cumulative high school grade point average of 2.25. At Kansas State the grade point average door is 3.25. A graduate of a non-accredited private secondary school gets one door, and it is the ACT. There is no grade point average alternative anywhere in subsection (c).

Which means a homeschooled Kansas senior with a beautiful transcript and a 20 on the ACT does not qualify under the regulation, while the neighbor with a 2.3 average at the local high school does. That is not an argument. It is the regulation, and it is the single most important scheduling fact in a Kansas homeschool high school.

Three things follow, and they are all actionable years in advance.

At 21, the diploma is enough by itself

K.A.R. 88-29c-6, subsection (b), says each state educational institution shall admit a Kansas resident who is 21 or older and meets one of three requirements, the second being that the applicant

has graduated from a non-accredited private secondary school

No test. No GED. KU's equivalent, K.A.R. 88-29d-6, is written the same way. The diploma the state fact sheet says is not recognized as meeting any requirements is, in the Board of Regents' own regulation, sufficient on its own at 21.

And the route that skips the question entirely

K.A.R. 88-29-4, subsection (b), says each state educational institution shall admit any Kansas resident who has earned 24 or more transferable credit hours from an institution of higher education and

has earned a cumulative grade point average of 2.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale in all postsecondary coursework.

Both 88-29c-5 and 88-29d-5 say up front that they do not apply to an applicant with 24 or more transferable hours. So a homeschooled student who finishes 24 hours at a Kansas community college with a 2.0 is admitted as a transfer student with no ACT and no diploma anywhere in the chain. The Board's own Alternative Admissions Options page recommends exactly this, notes that the Kansas community and technical colleges have open admission, and flags that KU asks 2.5 rather than 2.0 on that transfer route.

Dual credit: the general program is closed and the free one is open

Kansas has two dual credit systems and they point in opposite directions for your family. Most guides describe the first and never mention the second, which is backwards, because the second is the one that costs nothing.

The Kansas Challenge Act: closed, and it was going to bill you anyway

The Kansas challenge to secondary school students act is the framework for ordinary concurrent enrollment. K.S.A. 72-3222 defines who may use it, and it closes twice. A student must be

enrolled in grades 10, 11 or 12 maintained by a school district

and must have

been authorized by the principal of the school attended to apply for enrollment at an eligible postsecondary educational institution

A homeschooled student is enrolled in no district and has no principal. Two independent gates, and no paperwork opens either.

Before that stings, read what the act actually provides. K.S.A. 72-3224, subsection (a), says each student dually or concurrently enrolled

shall be responsible for the payment of the negotiated tuition and related costs, including fees, books, materials and equipment, charged by such institution for the student's enrollment.

The district may pay, in its discretion, under 72-3223(b). So what a Kansas homeschooler is locked out of is a framework whose default is that the family pays, plus a discretionary district subsidy. Nothing stops your teenager from simply enrolling at a community college and paying tuition, which is most of what the Challenge Act describes anyway. Kansas community and technical colleges have open admission.

Excel in CTE: tuition free by statute, and the Regents have answered the homeschool question in writing

The last subsection of the Challenge Act, 72-3224(e), carves out a whole other program:

The provisions of the Kansas challenge to secondary school students act shall not apply to any career technical education courses or programs that receive financial assistance or funding pursuant to K.S.A. 72-3810 or 72-3819, and amendments thereto.

That is the Excel in CTE initiative, created by Senate Bill 155 in 2012, and it is the free one. K.S.A. 72-3810, subsection (c)(1):

Secondary students admitted to a career technical education course or program which is conducted by a community college, technical college or institute of technology may be charged fees, but shall not be charged tuition.

Now the definition that decides whether your child is in it. Subsection (c)(3)(D) defines a secondary student as a pupil who has not attained a high school diploma or a general educational development (GED) credential and who is regularly enrolled in and attending a public or private secondary school. Not a public secondary school. A public or private one, and a Kansas homeschool is legally a private secondary school that is not accredited. That is the whole architecture of this state working in your favor for once.

You do not have to take our reading of it, because the Board of Regents answered the question directly in its own Excel in CTE frequently asked questions, revised December 3, 2018. Asked whether colleges receive the tuition payment for students in private high schools or home schooled students, the Board answers that the colleges and the two named institutes are

eligible to receive the tuition funding for secondary students regularly enrolled and attending a private high school or are home schooled

who enroll in an approved career technical education course tied or linked to a technical program at that institution. Asked whether the reimbursement is calculated differently for a home schooled student, the Board answers:

The tuition funding is calculated the same. The full KBOR composite rate calculation is applied to all high school student college credit hours in tiered technical courses.

Asked about age limits, it answers that the program

does not stipulate a specific grade or age requirement. However, the intent of the legislation is for payment of tuition for 11th and 12th grade high school students enrolling in tiered technical courses at a postsecondary institution.

And the reimbursement form the colleges file has an instruction telling them, for a home schooled student, to enter the high school as Home School. The state built a box for your family and printed the label on it.

K.S.A. 72-3819 confirms the design in the statute rather than only in a set of answers. Subsection (b) pays a school district $1,000 for each graduate who earns an industry recognized credential in a high demand occupation. Subsection (c) is a separate, parallel award, and it is written for a secondary student who

is regularly enrolled in and attending a private secondary school

paying the college, rather than a district, half the cost of that credential assessment up to $1,000. The Legislature built a second track for private secondary students because there is no district in the picture to pay.

Four honest limits, because free is doing some work in that sentence

Money in Kansas: one big door, one hard closure, and one thing to ask an accountant

The Kansas Promise Scholarship names your route by statute

This is the finding worth the most on this page, and it sits in a statute no homeschool guide reads. The Kansas promise scholarship eligibility statute, K.S.A. 74-32,275, lists the ways an applicant can satisfy the education requirement. The second one is written for you. The applicant may

have completed the requirements for graduation at a non-accredited private secondary school as provided in K.S.A. 72-4345, and amendments thereto, within the preceding 12 months

There it is. The same statute the Department's fact sheet points at when it says your diploma is not recognized as meeting any requirements is the statute the Legislature used to name your child in a scholarship program. The requirements for graduation are the ones your school sets, because you are the school.

What it pays, from K.S.A. 74-32,274: at a Kansas community or technical college or the Washburn Institute of Technology, tuition, required fees and the cost of books and required materials for a promise eligible program, minus other aid. The lifetime cap is

up to a total of 68 promise scholarship funded credit hours or a total of $20,000 in Kansas promise scholarship awards, whichever occurs first

The income limits are in the statute too: household income of $100,000 or less for a family of one or two, $150,000 or less for a family of three and, above three, the family of three amount plus $4,800 for each additional member. The programs are two year associate degrees and career and technical certificates in information technology and security, mental and physical healthcare, advanced manufacturing and building trades, and early childhood, elementary and secondary education.

And subsection (c) of the eligibility statute closes the loop with the Excel in CTE section above:

Nothing in this act shall prohibit a student who received postsecondary course credit while enrolled in high school from qualifying for a Kansas promise scholarship.

So the chain assembles: tuition free technical credit in high school under Excel in CTE, then the Promise Scholarship for the rest, then, if your child wants a bachelor's degree, 24 transferable hours and a 2.0 admits them to a state university under K.A.R. 88-29-4 with no diploma question at all. Three separate bodies of law, none of which references the others, and no Kansas homeschool guide assembles them.

Now the strings, because they are real and they are not optional. K.S.A. 74-32,276 requires the student to sign an agreement to complete the program within 36 months and then, within six months of graduating, to

Reside in and commence work in the state of Kansas for at least two consecutive years following completion of such program.

Enrolling at a Kansas postsecondary institution satisfies it in the interim, with the two year Kansas residency and work obligation attaching after that. Fail the agreement and you repay the scholarship. This is a service commitment, not a gift, and an eighteen year old should understand that before signing.

Two timing notes. The 12 month clock in subsection (a)(3)(B) is short, so a homeschool graduate planning a gap year should read subparagraph (D), which is an independent route requiring three or more consecutive years of Kansas residency evidenced by a Kansas issued identification card, Kansas voter registration records or Kansas income tax documentation. And the appropriation for the whole program

shall not exceed $10,000,000.

for any fiscal year, with the Board disbursing on reimbursement requests due September 1, December 1, March 1 and June 1. A capped fund is a first come consideration. Apply early in the year, not late.

The tax credit scholarship is closed to you, twice

Kansas has a tax credit for low income students scholarship program worth up to $8,000 per school year, and families ask about it constantly. K.S.A. 72-4352 shuts the door in two separate places. A qualified school must be one that

is accredited by the state board or a national or regional accrediting agency that is recognized by the state board

for the purpose stated there, or is working in good faith toward such accreditation. A non-accredited private school is, by its own statutory definition, not accredited. And separately, an eligible student must generally have been

enrolled in kindergarten or any of the grades one through eight in any public school in the previous school year in which an educational scholarship is first sought for the child

or be seven or under and eligible to enroll in a public school. Two independent closures, neither of which registration or paperwork can fix. There is no door here and a family should not spend a season looking for one.

There is no Kansas homeschool tax credit or deduction, and one 529 question is worth an accountant's hour

We read the individual income tax modifications at K.S.A. 79-32,117 looking for an education expense credit or deduction reaching homeschooling costs. There is none. The one education line in the Kansas calculation is subsection (c)(xv), the postsecondary savings account subtraction:

The cumulative amounts not exceeding $3,000, or $6,000 for a married couple filing a joint return, for each designated beneficiary

contributed to a Kansas family postsecondary education savings account or to another state's section 529 plan. Read the purpose clause attached to it, though: the statute describes the account as being for the purpose of paying the qualified higher education expenses of a designated beneficiary, and subsection (a)(x) adds back to Kansas income amounts received as nonqualified withdrawals if the contribution was previously subtracted.

Federal law has allowed some K-12 uses of a 529 for years. Whether a K-12 withdrawal is a nonqualified withdrawal for Kansas purposes, and therefore whether it triggers that add back, is a question we are not going to answer, because the honest answer depends on definitions in K.S.A. 75-643 and on how the Department of Revenue applies them, and because a confident answer from a company that profits from your enrollment is worth nothing. Ask the Kansas Department of Revenue in writing before you take the withdrawal, and keep the reply. If you have been treating a 529 as your homeschool budget, that email is worth more than anything else on this page.

Going back to a public or accredited school

Families ask this before they start, and they should. Kansas gives a clear and slightly uncomfortable answer, in the Department's own words on the fact sheet:

If a student transfers from a non-accredited private school to an accredited school, the accredited school is not required to accept the transfer of credit. The accredited school may find it necessary to test the student in order to make a decision regarding the transfer of credit.

Not required. May test. That is discretion, and no statute overrides it. The same document tells you what to do about it:

It is in the best interest of students attending non-accredited private schools that accurate and complete records of their progress be kept. These records will be needed if the student transfers to a public or an accredited school, or applies for admission to a college or university.

The fact sheet also prints the Kansas graduation minimums, described as the requirement for accredited public and accredited private schools and as recommended for non-accredited ones: four units of English language arts, three of history and government, three of science, three of mathematics, one of physical education, one of fine arts and six electives. Twenty one units. Nobody will audit yours. But if there is any chance of a transfer, or of a placement conversation at a college, that list is the shape the receiving office expects to see, and it costs nothing to follow.

One sourcing note we owe you about that fact sheet, since this page has leaned on it. It carries a revision date of February 12, 2024 and it still prints an email address and a website address at ksde.org and a link to a page that no longer exists. The Department's live page gives the current address as homeschool@ksde.gov and the phone as (785) 368-7088. Use the live page.

The honest part

Kansas asks you for a name and an address, once, and then leaves you completely alone for eleven years. There is no test, no report, no visit, no renewal and no reviewer. For a family that has been fighting a school system, that quiet is the entire point, and it is real.

And then, at the end, Kansas asks for one number. Not a portfolio, not a transcript, not a body of work. A 21 on the ACT, with no grade point average alternative anywhere in the regulation. A state that never once checked whether your ninth grader understood proportional reasoning will use a single Saturday morning in her junior year to decide whether six universities have to admit her.

That is the trade, and it is worth naming out loud rather than pretending it is all upside. Nobody is going to tell you that your fourth grader stopped following long division in October and has been copying the pattern since. Nobody is going to notice that a child who reads out loud beautifully is not taking in what she reads. In a state with an annual assessment, that news arrives late and badly. In Kansas it may not arrive at all, until a score report does.

Most families handle this well, because they are in the room every single day and they see things a test never will. But the mother lying awake in Wichita or Hutchinson or Garden City wondering whether her son is actually behind, and whether she would even know, is asking exactly the right question, and Kansas law is never going to answer it for her. That is not a criticism of the law. It is the necessary shape of a state that decided trust was worth more than surveillance, and it means the answering is yours.

How an AI teacher fits into a state like this one

Start with what we are not. Kitchen Table School is not a school in Kansas or in any other state. We are not accredited by the Kansas State Board of Education, we are not your non-accredited private school and we do not file your registration, we are not a qualified school for the tax credit scholarship, we are not an approved Excel in CTE provider, and we are not a member of the Kansas State High School Activities Association. You are the private school and you are the competent instructor, exactly as K.S.A. 72-3120 intends, with us or without us.

And one more, said plainly because you should hear it from us rather than discover it later: we are an openly Christian school. Every child gets identical warmth and identical academic standards regardless of what your family believes. We say what we are so nobody is surprised.

What we do is the part Kansas leaves entirely to you, which in this state is nearly the whole thing. Before anything else, the teacher sits down with your child for a free placement conversation that feels like a friendly chat rather than a test, and tells you where they actually are in each subject, not where the grade label says they should be. In a state with no assessment of any kind between age seven and the ACT, that is the answer to the only question Kansas never asks. From there your child gets a patient teacher working one on one at their real level, kindergarten through twelfth grade. Kansas families take the upload your own curriculum path: you choose the materials, the teacher reads them and teaches from their actual pages, paced across your year.

And every session writes itself down as it happens. The date, the subject, the book and unit, how long it ran, what your child worked on and what they got solid on, with the work samples behind it. Read that list back against this page. Kansas requires none of it. Then look at what Kansas asks for the moment your child wants something:

Kansas asks you for nothing for eleven years and then asks for all of it at once, in the year your child is applying for things. A record that writes itself all year is how a family carries that without inventing it in a panic in August.

This is general information for Kansas families researching homeschool law, current as of publication on September 10, 2026, and it is not legal, tax or financial aid advice for your situation. Statutory text is quoted from the Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes' published Kansas Statutes Annotated, specifically K.S.A. 72-3115, 72-3118, 72-3120, 72-3121, 72-3222, 72-3223, 72-3224, 72-3810, 72-3819, 72-4345, 72-4346, 72-4347, 72-4352, 72-6262, 72-7114, 72-7121, 72-7122, 74-32,271, 74-32,274, 74-32,275, 74-32,276, 76-717 and 79-32,117, together with Senate Bill 382 and Senate Bill 338 of the 2026 session as published by the Kansas State Legislature. Regulatory text is quoted from the Kansas Board of Regents' own published copies of K.A.R. 88-29-4, 88-29c-1, 88-29c-5, 88-29c-6, 88-29c-8, 88-29d-5 and 88-29d-6. Agency material is quoted from the Kansas State Department of Education's Nonaccredited Private Schools page and its Homeschooling In Kansas fact sheet revised February 12, 2024, from the Board of Regents' Qualified Admissions flyer dated December 2022 and its Excel in CTE frequently asked questions revised December 3, 2018, and from the Kansas State High School Activities Association's 2026-27 Handbook. Four sourcing notes we owe you. First, the Department's homeschool fact sheet and the Board of Regents' admission regulations disagree about whether a Kansas homeschool graduate needs a high school equivalency credential to enter college; we have followed the regulations, which are current, adopted under K.S.A. 76-717 and amended in February 2022, and we have shown you both. Second, the Excel in CTE guidance we rely on for the homeschool answer was revised in December 2018 while the statute behind it is current, so confirm your own child's eligibility with the college before enrolling. Third, we could not open a document stating the exact date the Governor approved Senate Bill 382; the Legislature's own bill page reports it signed and the activities association prints the new section as current law in its 2026-27 Handbook, and we have said no more than that. Fourth, K.S.A. 72-3121(g) states that the truancy act applies to both public and nonpublic schools, and we found no guidance applying that section's September 1 designation duty to a family homeschool; we have printed the sentence and refused the conclusion. Admission standards, scholarship terms, athletic regulations and appropriations all change, and they do not change together. Confirm anything you are relying on with the office that administers it, and consult an attorney about your own circumstances.

Curious how this works day to day once the registration is filed? Here's the honest guide to teaching your own curriculum with us, written for every out-of-state family, Kansas included. Since Kansas asks for no records and then asks for all of them at once, homeschool record keeping is the natural next read. And if the reason you are here is a child who was struggling in a classroom, start with homeschooling with an IEP or a learning difference. Or see the requirements for every other state.

See where your child stands first, free

Kansas will never test your child, never ask for a portfolio and never tell you how they are doing. That is the freedom, and it is also the question that keeps parents up. The free placement assessment answers it: it feels like a friendly chat, never a test, it takes about fifteen minutes, and it works the same in Kansas as anywhere else. No card.

Start with the free assessment
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