Field guide · Confirm with the authority before you file
Homeschooling in Michigan
Nothing to file under the home school exemption. Michigan requires no notice and no annual return. Reporting to the Department of Education each year is voluntary, unless your child is requesting special education services from the local public school or intermediate school district.
Nothing to file each year, level 1 of 4
What Michigan actually asks of a family teaching their own children. Written plainly, and honest where the answer is that nobody asks for anything.
You tell
No one
No notice is required. The Department of Education suggests telling your local school; if you do not, your child may be marked absent and the truancy officer may become involved. Reporting to the Department each year is voluntary, unless your child is requesting special education services from the local public school or intermediate school district.
By
Nothing is due
No date in the year.
Who reviews it
No one
No one at the state. The Michigan Department of Education plays no role with a home school family under exemption (f), and the family does not report to it. Intermediate and local school districts are responsible for interpreting and enforcing the compulsory school attendance law.
If you skip it
There is no filing to skip under the home school exemption
You do not have to tell your local school that you are home schooling, but the Department of Education suggests it: if you do not, your child may be marked absent and the truancy officer may become involved.
Who is in charge
The Michigan Department of Education plays no role under the home school exemption. Intermediate and local school districts are responsible for interpreting and enforcing the compulsory school attendance law. A family that operates as a nonpublic school, or that reports to receive special education or auxiliary services, reports to the Department of Education.
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
Nothing under the home school exemption. There is no notice and no annual return to submit in Michigan, and reporting to the Department of Education is voluntary unless your child is requesting special education services from the local public school or intermediate school district. 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.
Not required
Often assumed. None of it is asked of a family homeschooling in Michigan.
Yearly report to the Michigan Department of Education, only to receive special education or auxiliary servicesNot required. Voluntary under the home school exemption. The Department says it is required if your child is requesting eligible special education services from the local public school or intermediate school district, and each school year to keep them. I
The words a reviewer uses
An 'organized educational program' in the required subject areas.
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 Michigan, which today are English (326 of 383), Mathematics (490 of 574), Science (513 of 604), Social Studies (3 of 1631) and Physical Education (9 of 106). Those figures count the topics we carry for ages 5 to 12 that cite one of Michigan's published standards. A further 177 Social Studies topics are matched only to the national C3 Framework, which is guidance, not Michigan's own standard. Arts is not in the app for Michigan 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 Michigan'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
- Checked 11 Aug 2026
- Checked 11 Aug 2026
- Checked 19 Aug 2026
- Checked 7 Oct 2026
- Checked 7 Oct 2026
- Checked 7 Oct 2026
Sources last checked on 2026-10-07: MCL 380.1561, compulsory attendance at public school (Michigan Legislature). That is the date we checked, not the date the rule last changed.
Check it yourself: the source we used.
Guidance, not legal advice. Rules change and districts vary: confirm with the authority named above before you file.