Field guide · Read at the government's own source
Homeschooling in Massachusetts
Home education plan, for PRIOR APPROVAL, before instruction begins. The full list is below.
Show progress, level 4 of 4
What Massachusetts actually asks of a family teaching their own children. Written plainly, and honest where the answer is that nobody asks for anything.
You tell
School committee / superintendent
By
Before instruction begins
Your school district's own policy sets the approval process, including whether and when a plan must be submitted again.
Who reviews it
The local school committee or the superintendent, a genuine approval decision, not a filing.
If you skip it
Removing a child of compulsory school age
(6 to 16) from school without an approved home schooling plan makes the child truant. A parent or other person in control of the child who fails to cause the child to attend school for seven day sessions or fourteen half day sessions within any period of six months can be fined not more than twenty dollars, on complaint by a supervisor of attendance. The school district can also file an application for assistance in the juvenile court, saying the child requires assistance, once the child has willfully failed to attend school for more than 8 school days in a quarter.
Who is in charge
Local school committee, or the superintendent acting on its behalf
Who reviews your child is set out at the top of this page, in the authority's own terms.
The year
What you must file
No fixed dateYou file
Home education plan, for PRIOR APPROVAL
Before instruction begins. Your school district's own policy sets the approval process, including whether and when a plan must be submitted again.
How often: as set by your district's policy
Goes to: School committee / superintendent
Send your proposed plan to the school district where your child lives, after first notifying that district, preferably in writing, that you plan to home school. Charter schools, Commonwealth Virtual Schools, school choice districts and vocational technical education programs do not approve home schooling plans. Your district's own policy sets what the plan must contain. Districts typically review a plan for its content, instructional materials, how long and how often instruction happens, methods of instruction, evaluation, and whether it lets the child make adequate progress in the areas that Massachusetts identifies as essential. The district then approves the plan, asks you to change it or send more information, or disapproves it, and must tell you its decision, preferably in writing, within a reasonable period. Notification alone does not let you begin. A child of compulsory school age (6 to 16) must stay in school until the plan is approved; removing the child from school without an approved home schooling plan makes the child truant.
No fixed dateYou file
Periodic evaluation of progress, as set in your approved plan
As set in your approved plan and your district's policy
How often: as set in the approved plan
Goes to: The superintendent or school committee of the district where your child lives
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.
No fixed dateYou file
Notice to your school district that you plan to home school
Before you begin home schooling, as the first step in the approval process
Goes to: The school district where you live
Give the notice preferably in writing. Notification alone does not let you begin home schooling. Once the district has your notice, it must give you its policy and process for approval and ask you to submit your proposed home schooling plan. If your notice already includes the plan, the district should still give you its policy and process and then review the plan.
The words a reviewer uses
The Charles factors: instruction 'equal in thoroughness and efficiency, and in the progress made therein' to the local public schools.
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 tool is for. You say what your child did, in a sentence. It maps that to the published standards we hold for Massachusetts, which today are English (326 of 383), Mathematics (490 of 574), Science (331 of 604) and Physical Education (1 of 106). Those figures count the topics we carry for ages 5 to 12 that cite one of Massachusetts's published standards. A further 178 Social Studies topics are matched only to the national C3 Framework, which is guidance, not Massachusetts's own standard. Arts is not in the app for Massachusetts yet. A moment in any of those subjects is kept on the general map for your child's age and named that way in the record, so the record never cites Massachusetts's curriculum where we hold none of it. Then it builds the record you can hand over the day someone asks. See how it works.
Sources
- Read 11 Aug 2026
- Read 28 Aug 2026
- Read 19 Aug 2026
- Read 7 Oct 2026
- Read 7 Oct 2026
Last read at the source on 2026-10-07: Massachusetts General Laws, chapter 76, section 2: Duties of parents; penalty. That is the date we read it, not the date the rule last changed.
Check it yourself: the authority's own page.
Guidance, not legal advice. Rules change and districts vary: confirm with the authority named above before you file.