Field guide · Confirm with the authority before you file
Homeschooling in New Jersey
Nothing to file each year. New Jersey asks for no registration and no annual return. If you take a child out of a high school program they are enrolled in, you complete a transfer form that says the child will be taught elsewhere than at school.
Nothing to file each year, level 1 of 4
What New Jersey 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, in an ordinary year
If you take a child out of a high school program they are enrolled in, you complete a transfer form that says the child will be taught elsewhere than at school. If a school district refuses to enroll your child and you do not appeal, you give the district a written statement saying whether the child will attend school in another district or a nonpublic school, or be taught elsewhere than at school (N.J.A.C. 6A:22).
By
Nothing is due each year
No date in the year. A notice falls due only on the event under You tell.
Who reviews it
No one
No one. The law does not require or authorize the local board of education to review or approve your curriculum, test your child, or monitor results. If a board charges a parent under the compulsory education law, the parent must first offer evidence that they rely on the exception for equivalent instruction elsewhere than at school, and the burden of persuasion then rests with the State (State v. Vaughn, 1965). Equivalent means academically equivalent to the local public school, not equivalent in social development (State v. Massa, 1967).
If you skip it
Nothing routine
but a neglect report or a fine is possible. If a school district refuses to enroll your child, or removes your child as not eligible to attend, and you neither appeal nor give the written statement, district staff must report a potential instance of neglect to the district where you live or to the Department of Children and Families. If the local board of education has credible evidence that a child is neither in school nor receiving equivalent instruction elsewhere than at school, it may ask for documentation such as a letter of intent and may consult its attorney about charges. A parent who fails to meet the duties of the compulsory education law is a disorderly person and may be fined not more than $25 for a first offense and not more than $100 for each later offense, at the court's discretion. If you are charged, once you offer evidence that you rely on equivalent instruction elsewhere than at school, the burden of persuasion is on the State.
Who is in charge
None. Neither the state nor the local board of education approves a home program, and the local board does not monitor results. The local board of education enforces the compulsory education law.
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 in an ordinary year. If you take a child out of a high school program they are enrolled in, you complete a transfer form that says the child will be taught elsewhere than at school. Beyond that, there is no registration and no annual return to submit in New Jersey. 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 words a reviewer uses
'Equivalent instruction elsewhere than at school'. A New Jersey court read 'equivalent' as academically equivalent to the local public school, not equivalent in social development (State v. Massa, 1967).
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 New Jersey, which today are English (326 of 383), Mathematics (490 of 574), Science (515 of 604), Social Studies (2 of 1631) and Physical Education (6 of 106). Those figures count the topics we carry for ages 5 to 12 that cite one of New Jersey's published standards. A further 177 Social Studies topics are matched only to the national C3 Framework, which is guidance, not New Jersey's own standard. Arts is not in the app for New Jersey 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 New Jersey'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 7 Oct 2026
- Checked 7 Oct 2026
- Checked 7 Oct 2026
Sources last checked on 2026-10-07: N.J.S.A. 18A:38-25, Attendance required of children between six and 16; exceptions (New Jersey Legislature statute database). That is the date we checked, not the date the rule last changed.
The law itself: N.J.S.A. 18A:38-25; N.J.S.A. 18A:38-31; N.J.A.C. 6A:22-4.1(d). We hold no direct link to the authority's page for this jurisdiction.
Guidance, not legal advice. Rules change and districts vary: confirm with the authority named above before you file.