Homeschool compliance, record keeping, and planning

Your child has an IEP. Homeschooling doesn't automatically end those services, but what you keep depends on your state, your district, and what you ask for in writing before you withdraw.

In about a dozen states, your homeschool student can show up at the local public school for science lab, PE, or foreign language and go home for everything else. Most families don't know it's an option. Here's which states allow it and how to do it.

Students with dyslexia, ADHD, 2e profiles, or IEP histories don't fit the standard transcript grid. Here's how to document what they learned: honestly, legibly, and in a format colleges can read.

NC families operate a nonpublic school under state law, which means the DNPE, a one-time notice of intent, and a required standardized test every year. Here's what to file, when, and what stays home.

Georgia's Promise Scholarship is real, but most homeschooling families cannot use it. Here is what Georgia's home study law actually requires, how the scholarship's eligibility rules work, and how to set up a compliant homeschool without chasing money that was not designed for you.

When school itself was the source of the problem, rebuilding school at home makes it worse. Here is what the first year looks like for an anxious kid: why deschooling runs longer, how to tell recovery from entrenchment, what to teach in the first 90 days, and how to log a month that fell apart.

Most states that require PE for homeschoolers never define what it looks like. A sport three times a week, a martial arts class, or a walk with a stopwatch all count. The gap is documentation. Here is what to log, how the high school credit math works, and what evaluators check.

The four common patterns for the 5th day, the math on state hour requirements, when a 4-day week works vs falls apart, and the one-line test to see if yours has a chance.

HB33 eliminated Ohio's 900-hour requirement, the annual assessment, and the teacher qualification rules. Here is what Ohio actually requires in 2026, why so much published advice is still wrong, and what happened to ACE funding.

Which states actually review, what triggers extra scrutiny, the records that satisfy evaluators, and how to respond to an audit letter without panicking.

Iowa's HF 2754, signed May 2026, deleted the four-student cap and the payment ban from independent private instruction, and made parent-issued diplomas legally binding. Here is what changed, what stayed the same, and what families starting this fall need to do.

If your family does co-ops, field trips, and hands-on learning but your hour log only shows workbook time, you are underreporting. Here is how to log real-world learning accurately so your records reflect what you actually do.