Homeschooling in Alaska

Alaska law sets no withdrawal procedure, no form, and no deadline for a child leaving public school to be educated at home, so you can start on any day of the school year. Until the school knows your child has left, your child is still on its roll, so send a short written notice before the first day at home.

What the notice says

• Your child's full name, grade, and school
• That your child is withdrawing to be educated at home by a parent or legal guardian
• The date home education begins
• Your signature and the date

Email or hand delivery both work; keep a copy with the date you sent it. Before you go, ask for copies of report cards, test scores, and any special education evaluations, which are easiest to get while your child is still on the roll.

A 6-year-old is a special case. If you enrolled your child in public first grade at age 6 and withdraw within 60 days of enrolling, the attendance law does not apply to your child again until age 7.

Alaska law asks home-educating parents for no records, and no one reviews them. Records come up only when your child moves into a school or college system, in four places:

• Enrolling in a public school later, when the district places your child and decides which courses count toward its diploma
• A University of Alaska application, which reads a home school transcript
• Applying for the Alaska Performance Scholarship, which needs an official transcript and a course checklist
• Playing high school sports through a school of eligibility, which asks for proof of credits and grades

The useful set is small: the subjects and main materials for each year, a few samples of work in each subject, any test scores, and, from ninth grade on, each course with its grade and credit. The University of Alaska Anchorage asks for a transcript that shows the home school's name and physical address, every course with its credits and grades, the educator's signature, and the graduation date.

Alaska requires no tests of a child educated at home by a parent: no state assessment, no annual achievement test, and no evaluation. Tests come up only through other routes and later steps:

• Private school route: the school gives a nationally standardized test in reading, spelling, English grammar, and mathematics in grades 4, 6, and 8.
• College: the Alaska Performance Scholarship accepts an ACT, SAT, or WorkKeys score in place of a grade point average, and University of Alaska campuses use placement exams to decide which first courses a student takes.

Every school district must find and evaluate children with disabilities who live in it, a duty called Child Find. Alaska's special education rules go further than most states: each district must run a special education program for children with disabilities ages 3 through 21 who live in the district, and the rule names children being educated in their homes by a parent among the children covered.

To start, ask the school district where you live, in writing, for an evaluation. Once you sign consent, the district has 90 calendar days to evaluate your child, write an individualized education program (IEP) if your child qualifies and you consent to services, and begin those services.

Part-time enrollment

A district must, on request, let a homeschooled child enroll part time, and it may not treat part-time students differently from full-time students. It can refuse only if it would deny the same enrollment to a full-time student or if the enrollment would spend public money directly benefiting a private school. Part-time enrollment does not count as attendance under the compulsory attendance law, and it does not cover sports or other activities.

A district that runs a correspondence program must enroll a student with a disability on the same basis as any other student and provide the full special education program, including an IEP.

Alaska's graduation requirements, at least 21 credits under a plan each district adopts, bind public schools, not a parent educating a child at home. The parent decides what a homeschool graduate completes and issues the transcript and diploma; the state does not issue diplomas to homeschoolers.

Alaska treats a home school graduate as a high school graduate for its main scholarship: the Alaska Performance Scholarship counts Alaska residents who graduate from public, private, or home schools. If you want that option open, plan high school around one of its three core course patterns, each with four years of language arts and four of social studies plus three or four years each of math and science.

A homeschool graduate's record is two documents: the diploma and a transcript that lists each course by year with its grade and credit, signed by the parent as the educator.

Alaska has no statute on admitting homeschool graduates; each University of Alaska campus sets its own rules. The University of Alaska Anchorage, for example, accepts transcripts from home schools that meet their state's requirements, and an applicant from a home school outside Alaska also shows that state's home school requirements and proof the home school met them. Its bachelor's programs ask for a 2.0 high school grade point average; certificate and associate programs set no minimum.

Merit scholarship

The Alaska Performance Scholarship pays up to $7,000, $5,250, or $3,500 a year at Alaska colleges and training programs, depending on a high school grade point average of 3.5, 3.0, or 2.5, or an equivalent ACT, SAT, or WorkKeys score. A home school student asks DEED for an eligibility determination by sending its form, the course checklist for the graduation year, and an official transcript by July 15. The student also files the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) by June 30 each year the award is used.

High school students can take University of Alaska courses for credit before graduating, called dual enrollment, by applying directly to a campus. At Anchorage, they pay regular tuition and fees, and a student 17 or younger needs a signed parent or guardian authorization form.

Homeschool dual enrollment in Alaska

Alaska ties sports eligibility to enrollment in an alternative education program, which state law defines to include charter schools, statewide correspondence schools, and accredited home school programs. A student in grades 9 through 12 in one of these programs can play for the public school whose attendance area includes the family's home, or for another school whose board approves for good cause. An independent homeschool counts only if it is accredited by the one accrediting body DEED recognizes for home school programs. Part-time enrollment in public school classes does not open a sports path.

The student meets the Alaska School Activities Association (ASAA) rules: enrollment in at least 2.5 units of credit, at least 2.5 units passed with a 2.0 grade point average the previous semester, a sports physical within the past 18 months, and no more than eight consecutive semesters since first entering ninth grade.

Homeschool sports eligibility in Alaska

Alaska has no individual income tax, so there is no homeschool deduction or credit to claim, and the state has no education savings account for independent homeschoolers.

Families who enroll in a district correspondence program instead may receive an annual student allotment, set by each program, for instructional costs. The money buys only nonsectarian services and materials that the student's learning plan requires and the district approves, cannot pay a family member, and returns to the district if the student leaves the program.

Alaska has also elected to join the federal scholarship tax credit beginning in tax year 2027. Approved scholarship granting organizations may raise donations from January 1, 2027, and each sets its own scholarship amounts and rules.

Homeschool tax breaks and funding in Alaska

A child can enroll in an Alaska public school at any time. No statewide rule governs placing a student who was educated at home; the district decides the grade and which earlier courses count toward the 21 credits its graduation plan requires.

A student who transfers in after the second year of high school, or who already completed a state history course elsewhere, is exempt from the Alaska history credit public schools otherwise require.

A district may ask after a withdrawal, or when it learns of a school-age child who is not enrolled. Because the home education exemption has no filing, a short signed statement that your child is being educated at home by a parent or legal guardian answers the question; the law gives the district nothing further to review.

A parent who keeps a child out of school without an exemption commits a violation, and each five days of unlawful absence counts as a separate violation. Home education by a parent is an exemption, so it is not an unlawful absence.