Homeschooling in Missouri

Missouri sets no deadline and no start date, so you can withdraw on any school day, including in the middle of a semester. The notice goes to your child's public school district. Until that school drops your child, your child is still enrolled there.

What the notice says

• Your child's full name, grade, and school
• That you are withdrawing your child to teach them in a home school
• A request that the school drop your child from its rolls
• The date the home school begins
• Your signature and the date

The law asks only that the notice be in writing. Keep a copy with the date you sent it. For a child aged 5 or 6, the same written request to drop the child from the rolls excuses the child from attending.

Before you go, ask the school for copies of report cards, test scores, and any special education evaluations and plans. They are easiest to get while your child is still on the roll.

The three records in the required steps are the law until your child turns 16. They are the evidence that your child receives regular instruction. The law sets no format and no retention period, nobody collects them, and only the local prosecuting attorney may review them.

The law counts hours, not days. A dated log by subject and place is the clearest way to show those totals. Missouri's school year runs from July 1 to June 30, so each year's hours fall within that span.

Worth keeping after 16, too

The legal duty ends at 16, but a short record still helps in three situations that ask what your child has learned:

• Enrolling in a public school later, when the district reviews courses and work to decide grade placement and credit
• Applying to college or for a scholarship, which reads a high school transcript and test scores
• Taking part in district sports or activities, where you oversee the academic standards

Missouri requires no tests of home school students: no state tests, no annual achievement test, and no outside evaluation. The record of evaluations of academic progress is yours to make. The law does not say how you evaluate progress, and it does not require a test for it.

Tests come up only when your child steps into a school, college, or state program. College admission and Missouri's Bright Flight scholarship use ACT or SAT scores, and a return to public school can involve placement assessments. Both are explained below.

Federal special education law requires school districts to locate, identify, and evaluate children with disabilities, and that duty, called Child Find, covers home school students. DESE says the duty belongs to the district where the home school is located, which for most families is the district where they live. To start, ask that district in writing for an evaluation. Federal rules require the district to finish the process in a time comparable to that for public school students.

If the evaluation finds a disability, DESE classifies a home school student as a private school student. The district spends a proportionate share of its federal special education money on private and home school students and decides which services to offer. A student chosen for services gets a services plan but has no individual right to the full program an enrolled student receives, and DESE calls a full range of services highly unlikely.

Missouri law adds its own rules. A district may offer special education services during the regular school day, and it cannot deny those services to a resident child, or treat that child differently, because the child attends a home school. The district does not have to provide transportation to them.

The attendance law also allows full-time equivalent attendance at a combination of schools, so a child can split time between a home school and public school classes where the district enrolls part-time students. A home school student may also take Missouri Course Access and Virtual School Program (MOCAP) courses by paying the tuition or fees.

Missouri's graduation requirements are set by the State Board of Education and local school boards for public schools. No Missouri law sets graduation requirements for a home school, so you set them and issue the diploma.

For the attendance law, one credit means 100 or more hours in a course. A student who completes 16 of those credits no longer has to attend school, even before age 17.

A home school graduate's record is two documents: the diploma and a transcript that lists each course by year with its hours, grade, and credit, signed by you as the home school's administrator.

Work certificates

When a homeschooled child needs a work certificate under Missouri's child labor law, the parent who is the child's primary education provider issues it. Your district superintendent can also issue one.

Missouri's merit scholarship, Bright Flight, is open to homeschoolers. It goes to students whose ACT or SAT composite score is in the top 5 percent of Missouri test takers. A homeschooler must reach the score by the June test date right after finishing secondary coursework, then enroll full time at a participating Missouri college the next academic year. For 2026 graduates, an ACT score of 32 or above earns an award of up to $3,000, and a score of 30 or 31 up to $1,000, split between the fall and spring terms.

The A+ Scholarship, which pays tuition at community colleges and technical schools, requires two years at a designated A+ high school before graduation, so a student who homeschools through high school does not qualify.

High school students can take college courses for credit through dual credit or dual enrollment. The state's Dual Credit and Dual Enrollment Scholarship pays tuition and fees for those courses for a student with at least a 2.5 high school grade point average who shows financial need, such as eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or the Women, Infants, and Children program (WIC). Awards depend on state funding.

Homeschool dual enrollment in Missouri

A 2025 state law, Senate Bill 63, requires every Missouri school district and charter school to let home school students try out for and take part in its athletics, fine arts, and related activities. A student plays for the district or charter school that serves the family's home address. The school cannot require the student to attend classes, except coursework built into an activity, such as some fine arts programs and career and technical student organizations.

The student meets the same conduct, physical, fee, and residence rules as enrolled students, and the parent oversees the academic standards. The Missouri State High School Activities Association (MSHSAA) changed its rules to match in August 2025. A student who leaves a public school while academically or behaviorally ineligible cannot take part in that district's activities for 12 months.

Homeschool sports eligibility in Missouri

Missouri's scholarship account program, MOScholars, does not serve home schools: the law bars a home school from enrolling a child in the program. A family can use MOScholars by teaching as an FPE school instead.

A student qualifies with an individualized education program (IEP) under federal special education law, or with household income at or below 300 percent of the free and reduced-price lunch standard plus one of these: a semester of full-time public school in the past 12 months, eligibility to start kindergarten or first grade, or a sibling with a scholarship. Awards are capped against the state adequacy target, the per-student figure in the public school funding formula: 100 percent of it for most students, 125 percent with free or reduced-price lunch eligibility, and 175 percent with an IEP.

Funds pay for curriculum, tutoring, therapies, approved computers, and public school classes, but not consumable supplies or payments to relatives. Scholarships come from donations that earn donors a state tax credit, so awards depend on funding.

Homeschool tax breaks and funding in Missouri

When a child enrolls in a Missouri public school, DESE's Graduation Toolkit treats a home school transfer like one from an unaccredited school: the district reviews the courses and any test results you report, interviews the student and parents, gives formal or informal assessments if the records are inadequate, and makes a tentative placement. You provide the records the home school law requires.

A student placed in ninth grade must meet all state and local graduation requirements. A student who transfers from a home school later in high school may graduate by completing an individualized program of studies that school officials, the parents, and the student agree on, even if it totals fewer than the 24 credits Missouri public schools require.

For young children, a district may evaluate a child coming from a home school before promoting the child to first grade.

Missouri sends home school attendance questions to the county prosecutor, not to the school district. If a Children's Division investigation finds that the only issue is school attendance, the division sends the report to the district, and the district must refer any home school matter to the prosecuting attorney of the county where the child lives.

A daily log showing that the home school's instruction meets the hours and records law is a defense to an attendance prosecution and to an educational neglect charge. Violating the attendance law is a class C misdemeanor. After a conviction, the parent has three public school days to enroll the child in a school, a home school included, and each later school day counts as a separate violation.