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Homeschooling in Massachusetts

What Massachusetts actually asks of a family teaching their own children. Written plainly, and honest where the answer is that nobody asks for anything.

United StatesFiling required

Who is in charge

Local school committee, or the superintendent acting on its behalf

Who actually reviews your child

The local school committee or the superintendent, a genuine approval decision, not a filing.

What you must file

Home education plan, for PRIOR APPROVAL

Before instruction begins; renewed each year

Goes to: School committee / superintendent

Must set out the proposed curriculum, the materials to be used, the number of hours and days of instruction, and the qualifications of the instructing parent. Instruction may not lawfully begin until approved.

Periodic evaluation

As agreed

How often: as set in the approved plan

Goes to: SUBMITTED to the superintendent or school committee

Care and Protection of Charles permits the superintendent or committee to require standardized testing or another form of periodic evaluation as a condition of approval, but a specific method cannot be imposed over the parent's objection where an alternative would serve.

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 Massachusetts and builds the record you can hand over the day someone asks. See how it works.

Start your record

Other places in United States

AlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareDistrict of ColumbiaFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIdahoIllinois
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: the Massachusetts DESE home schooling page at doe.mass.edu. Its words: 'for children of compulsory school age (6-16), home schooling requires advance approval by the district in which the child lives', and the district reviews the proposed plan for content, instructional materials, duration and frequency of instruction, methods of instruction, evaluation, and whether it enables the child to make adequate progress, communicating its decision 'preferably in writing, within a reasonable period'. No fixed calendar deadline exists, which is why this page reads 'as agreed'. This closes the gap flagged on 2026-08-18, when the only source that answered was a FEDERAL ed.gov page self-dated 'last updated November 14, 2016'.
Check it yourself: the authority's own page.