What Illinois actually asks of a family teaching their own children. Written plainly, and honest where the answer is that nobody asks for anything.
United StatesNo filing required
Who is in charge
None (home schools operate as private schools)
Who actually reviews your child
No one.
What you must file
Nothing. There is no registration, no notice and no annual return to submit in Illinois. That freedom is real, and it carries a quiet catch: because nobody ever required a record, there is no file to reach for the day someone finally asks what your child has learned.
The part the paperwork does not cover
Filing on time is the easy half. The harder half is the year in between: showing what your child actually learned, in words the reviewer recognises, without turning your home into a school.
That is what this app is for. You say what your child did, in a sentence. It maps that to the real curriculum for Illinois and builds the record you can hand over the day someone asks. See how it works.
Read at the government's own source. Every requirement above was checked word for word against the authority's own page or statute, on the date shown. Read at the source on 2026-08-28: 105 ILCS 5/26-1 in full at ilga.gov. Compulsory age is 'between the ages of 6 (on or before September 1) and 17 years', and the first exemption is 'Any child attending a private or a parochial school where children are taught the branches of education taught to children of corresponding age and grade in the public schools'. That is the whole of the home-schooling law: no notice, no registration, nothing filed. Both sources on this record were previously a DEAD BILL (HB2827, re-referred to the Rules Committee 2025-04-11 and never passed) and a homeschool association page; neither is the authority for the law in force, and the statute has been put first. The law itself: 105 ILCS 5/26-1. We hold no direct link to the authority's page for this jurisdiction.