Compare HSLDA with us
HSLDA membership brings legal advice and representation for homeschooling families. We are the curriculum your child learns from, from the first lesson to the transcript.
A legal membership or a curriculum
The Home School Legal Defense Association is a nonprofit legal membership organization for homeschool families. Members can be represented through letters, phone calls, and court. HSLDA also lobbies state legislatures, publishes homeschool laws by state, and offers members articles, webinars, and The Home School Court Report.
We are a curriculum: we teach your child, and we also draft the state documents homeschool families are asked for, though we do not give legal advice.
Where your child starts
HSLDA membership covers legal advice and advocacy for the family. It does not supply a curriculum, so choosing a starting level in each subject belongs to the program the family uses.
To start your child where they actually are, we write a placement test for each subject. It has 25 questions, or 12 for younger learners, and it adapts as your child answers.
From every answer, we estimate where your child is solid but not yet finished, and that's where they start. Each subject is placed on its own, so your child might begin in the middle of fourth-grade math and the beginning of fifth-grade reading. In grades 3 to 12, a child who prefers paper can print the free placement test, then upload a photo of the answer sheet for grading.
What a school day looks like
HSLDA's part in a homeschool day is the legal background: it publishes homeschool laws by state, along with member articles and webinars on topics such as high school, special needs, and testing.
Our Parent Dashboard lays out today's lessons by subject. You can build the week around your family's hours and print it for the fridge.
Interactive articles weave in your child's interests, with images and videos made for them. Reading checks confirm understanding, then your child applies the idea in a project, such as optimizing lap times for F1 or working out a rocket’s fuel load.
When your child gets stuck
HSLDA members can ask for personal legal advice and call an emergency legal hotline. That help concerns homeschooling law; questions about a lesson still go to the family's curriculum or teacher.
Our Always-On Mentor sits beside every reading and project, so help is there the moment your child needs it.
The mentor also steps in on its own when your child seems stuck, explains the idea another way, and can make it visual by drawing on its board. In a reading check or a project, it guides your child's thinking without giving the answer away.
Learning to keep a notebook
From Grade 3, our readings offer an optional Notebook guide to help your child organize their learning. It encourages lesson headings and unit labels, and the printable guide offers tips for taking notes in their own words rather than copying the article.
The guide encourages your child to note where they struggled and how they got past it. One tip is to star a useful takeaway, then gather those takeaways into a review page. When your child scans and uploads their notebook pages, we help them remember those ideas and shape practice problems around the places they struggled.
Who grades the work
HSLDA's services concern law and advocacy for homeschooling families. The curriculum or teacher a family uses supplies the schoolwork and its grades, separately from the legal membership.
We grade everything your child submits as soon as they submit it, so grading never lands on you. When your child gets something wrong, we help them work through it, and projects come back with feedback so they can revise them.
Records, state paperwork, and the transcript
HSLDA gives members legal forms tailored to their state's requirements. Those forms support the family's filings, while the coursework and grades used in a school record come from elsewhere.
At TheHomeschoolingCompany, your child's school record builds as they work: daily check-ins log attendance, and everything they finish is saved automatically. Attendance logs and learning summaries are ready to export, and we draft the documents your state asks for from that same record, including portfolios with real work samples.
Our high school transcript builds from completed work, with courses, letter grades, credits, and GPA calculated for you.
Moving from HSLDA to us
School in a Box includes up to 12 subjects, from the core to custom electives on anything your child is curious about. Single Subject covers one course, if you would rather start there.
Start the 14-day trial and choose School in a Box or Single Subject.
Pick your child's subjects, including any topics they have been asking to learn more about.
Your child takes a placement in each subject, and their whole curriculum is built around them.
Other questions
- Do you give legal advice?
- No. We draft the documents your state lists for homeschool families from your child's record, but questions about what the law requires are outside what we do.
- Can we use ESA funds?
- Yes. We are an approved vendor in Arizona, Alabama, New Hampshire, and Utah. Your program decides which purchases it covers and how to pay through ClassWallet or Odyssey.
- Can brothers and sisters each have their own path?
- Yes. Each child is placed, taught, and recorded separately, all from one parent account.
Your child's curriculum. Your family's time.
Once your legal pathway is clear, let us handle the daily teaching your child needs.
$149/month per child after the trial.