Field guide · Confirm with the authority before you file
Homeschooling in Texas
Nothing to file each year. Texas asks for no registration and no annual return. If your child is enrolled in a public school, send the school a letter of withdrawal when you take them out. A school district can ask you in writing for a letter of assurance that your child is being home schooled; you send one only if asked.
Nothing to file each year, level 1 of 4
What Texas 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 your child is enrolled in a public school, send the school a letter of withdrawal when you take them out. A school district can ask you in writing for a letter of assurance that your child is being home schooled; you send one only if asked.
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 routine review
The Texas Education Agency says it does not regulate, index, monitor, approve, register or accredit home school programs, and state law says the agency, the State Board of Education and other educational institutions supported by state tax funds may not adopt a rule or policy that regulates an educational program of a home school. A school district that becomes aware of a child who may be home schooled may ask the parents in writing for a letter of assurance, and the agency says that whether compulsory attendance has been violated should be decided by the school district or local judicial authorities.
If you skip it
No routine check
A child taught at home is exempt from compulsory attendance to the same extent as a student enrolled in a private school, and the law exempts a child who attends a private or parochial school that includes in its course a study of good citizenship. If, after a written warning from the school district, a parent with criminal negligence fails to require a child to attend school as the law requires, and the child's absences reach the level the Family Code sets, the attendance officer or another school official files a complaint against the parent in court. The offense is a misdemeanor punishable by fine only: up to $100 for a first offense, rising to $500 for a fifth or later offense, and each day the child remains out of school may count as a separate offense.
Who is in charge
None. The Texas Education Agency states it does not regulate, monitor, approve, register or accredit home schools.
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 your child is enrolled in a public school, send the school a letter of withdrawal when you take them out. A school district can ask you in writing for a letter of assurance that your child is being home schooled; you send one only if asked. Each item below applies only on the event it names, or is kept at home.
No fixed dateYou file
Letter of withdrawal (only if your child is enrolled in a public school)
When you take your child out of public school to home school
How often: once, on withdrawal
Goes to: The public school your child is leaving
The Texas Education Agency's home school policy letter says students should be dis-enrolled by school officials when they receive written notice, either signed withdrawal forms or a letter of withdrawal. A signed and dated letter saying that your child is being home schooled and the date home schooling began is enough. You do not need to meet school officials in person, show them your curriculum, or meet any other requirement to withdraw your child. This includes a child in prekindergarten or kindergarten, because state law says a child enrolled in prekindergarten or kindergarten shall attend school.
No fixed dateYou file
Letter of assurance that your child is being home schooled (only if a school district asks in writing)
Only if a school district asks you for one in writing
How often: only on request; not required each year
Goes to: The school district that asks
The Texas Education Agency says a school district that becomes aware of a student who may be home schooled may ask the parents in writing for a letter of assurance that the student is being home schooled. The letter may need to give assurances that your home school curriculum is designed to meet basic education goals, including reading, spelling, grammar, mathematics and a study of good citizenship. The agency says a letter of this type is not required each year.
The words a reviewer uses
A 'bona fide' curriculum in visual form covering reading, spelling, grammar, mathematics and good citizenship.
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. Those figures count the topics we carry for ages 5 to 12 that cite one of Texas's published standards. Arts is not in the app for Texas 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 Texas'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 7 Oct 2026
- Checked 7 Oct 2026
- Checked 7 Oct 2026
- Checked 7 Oct 2026
Sources last checked on 2026-10-07: Texas Education Agency, Home Schooling. That is the date we checked, not the date the rule last changed.
The law itself: TEC § 25.086(a)(1); TEC § 25.093; TEC § 1.010. 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.