Homeschool questions, answered

Yes, in every state, and every state sets its own rules. Ten states (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Massachusetts and New Jersey) have a step-by-step page here, in plain English with its statutes linked to the official text; every other state has a high-school page, until its law page is written: homeschool requirements by state.

Start with your state's own legal steps, then build a year plan and a way to keep the record as you go. The legal half is on your state's page: some states ask for a notice or a yearly report, some ask for nothing at all. The practical half is a year plan and a way to keep the record as you go. In Trellis that is one evening of setup, your school year and your kids, then any curriculum turned into a year of work: the Set Up Your Family and Turn Any Curriculum Into a Year Plan guides walk through it, and the first 30 days are free (see What does it cost): start your family's records.

Tell the school in writing and keep a copy, then follow your state's own starting steps. Some states put the notice first: in Texas a child leaving a public school is withdrawn with a signed, dated letter to the school (TEA's guidance, not a state filing); in Minnesota the initial report goes to the superintendent within 15 days of withdrawing a child over seven (Minn. Stat. § 120A.24); in New York the notice of intent goes to the superintendent within 14 days of a midyear start (8 NYCRR § 100.10(b)). Your state's page has the order and the wording (ten states so far; ask for yours): requirements by state.

Anywhere from almost nothing, with library books, free online courses and used materials, to a few thousand dollars a year for boxed curricula or online classes; curriculum is the variable. Trellis is separate from that choice and turns whatever you use into a year plan; its own price is on the pricing page, and the first 30 days are free.

A planner and record keeper for one family's homeschool. You plan the school year in an evening, run each day from one calendar, and the records build themselves as your kids check off their work: grades, a learning log, a reading log, and printable year-end documents. It is not a social network, a curriculum store, or a co-op manager. There are no feeds, no ads, and no upsells inside your school day. See what Trellis does.

It is a planner and a record keeper with a compliance guide for your state built into it. Compliance here means meeting what your state asks of a homeschooling family, on time. Trellis shows each requirement in plain English, links the statute to the official text, and lines your own records up against it, so a gap shows before a deadline does. It never decides that you have met a requirement, and it never files anything for you; the record and the dates are what it gives you, and reading them stays yours. See your state's requirements.

It turns the school work you already do into the record your state asks for, entered once. You plan the year and your children check their work off; from that Trellis counts days and hours, keeps subjects, grades, a learning log and a reading log, and prints a year summary, an evidence pack or a transcript. Where a state expects a report or a letter, Trellis drafts it from your own records for you to read, sign and send yourself. The paperwork is a by-product of an ordinary school day rather than a separate job in August. Start your family's records.

$79 a year for the whole family: every child, every feature, including high-school planning and the transcript. The first 30 days are free, no card needed. If a trial ends without a subscription, adding and editing pause; your records remain available to view, print and download. The price is on the pricing page.

Yes. Each child signs in to their own view and sees only their own list for today: what to do, the notes you left, a timer, and their own records as they grow. They check work off; they cannot change the plan. A sibling's work is never shown. Setting a child up takes a minute: Give Each Child a Login.

Paste it. A lesson count or a table of contents, a chapter plan with the tasks you repeat, or a spreadsheet you already keep: each one becomes a year of lessons spread across the months you choose. You see every lesson on a preview and can fix anything before a single one is created, and every import can be undone. There is a guided practice run on the import page. The steps are in Turn Any Curriculum Into a Year Plan.

Yes. Trellis is a website, so it works in the browser on a phone, a tablet, or a computer, with nothing to install. A child's daily list is built to be used on a phone. Planning a whole year is easier on a bigger screen, and every part of it still works on a small one.

Planning, grading, and record keeping work anywhere. State paperwork is built one state at a time, and today that covers Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, following each state's real rules. Every other state has a high-school planning page. If your state's paperwork is not built yet, you still keep every record in Trellis and fill in your own state's forms from them. Requirements by state.

Ten so far, each built from the statute and checked line by line: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Every one is free to read without an account, with each statute linked to the official text. The other 41 states have a high-school and transcript page until their law page is written, and the planning, grading and record keeping work the same in all of them. Tell us your state and we will add it to the list: homeschool requirements by state.

It keeps the ordinary ones, which is what a district or an evaluator normally asks to see: days taught, hours by subject, a learning log, grades, a reading list, the work your children check off, and for high school a transcript. Trellis prints them as a year summary or an evidence pack you can hand over. What a district may ask varies by state, and some of it a district may not ask at all; your state's page says what the law itself requires: requirements by state. Trellis never sends any of it to a school or a district for you.

Any time. Print or download your records whenever you want; nothing is locked in. If you stop subscribing, your account stays readable and exportable. A lapsed family loses editing, never their history. Every day your records are also backed up to a second storage provider, so one failure cannot take them with it.

A homeschool family in Minnesota. Ryan builds it; his wife runs their homeschool with it every school day. The company is Isanti Analytics LLC, a small Minnesota business with no investors and no growth team. When you email support, the person who answers is the person who wrote the code. About us.

Cancel from the Billing page whenever you like; your records stay readable and exportable. To delete your family's account entirely, use the Account page to send a deletion request. We confirm it with the email on the account and then remove everything. Encrypted backups are deleted on a rolling schedule; the privacy policy gives the current retention period.

No. Trellis helps organise records but does not provide legal, educational, accreditation, tax or compliance advice; families remain responsible for meeting the requirements that apply to them. Every state page carries that line, links the statutes it summarises, and names the office to ask about an unusual situation. The terms of service say the same.

A parent sees the whole family's plans and records. A child's own sign-in shows only that child's schedule, records and progress, never a sibling's. Other Trellis families cannot see yours. Trellis does not sell your family's information, use it for advertising, or use it to train AI. The people who run the service can reach stored information only when it is necessary for support, security, backups or running the service; the privacy policy says exactly who and when, plainly. You may export your data and request deletion at any time. The details are in the privacy policy and the children's privacy notice.

It keeps them organised and lines them up against your state's requirements, so a gap shows before a deadline does, and it prints the documents you may need: a year summary, an evidence pack, a transcript, a report or letter written from your own records for you to sign. It never files anything for you. Trellis does not automatically send your records to your school, school district, a state education agency, or another family; any letter or form it helps you prepare is for you to send yourself.

Usually not, but the answer depends on the state and route. Pennsylvania's private-tutor route requires a Pennsylvania-certified teacher; its home-education program does not. North Dakota asks a question about the parent's own diploma, and Minnesota asks you to declare which qualification path applies to you; most parents use the path for a parent whose child takes the yearly test. Your state's page says what it asks: requirements by state.

No state with a page here requires one. Accreditation is a private review of a school or curriculum; the legal side is your state's own steps, which are about notice, subjects, hours or days, and testing, not about who accredited your materials. Colleges read the transcript and course descriptions, not an accreditation seal.

Many states say so by statute; three with a page here are Minnesota (Minn. Stat. § 123B.49, subd. 4(a)), Wisconsin (Wis. Stat. § 118.133) and South Dakota (SDCL § 13-36-7), which require the resident district to let a homeschooled student take part in activities on the same basis as enrolled students. Each state's page has the details: requirements by state.

Yes. Whether the public school keeps providing services is a state-by-state question. New York has a route, the IESP, for services while a child is home instructed (Education Law § 3602-c(2-c)); Iowa's Pathways 3, 4 and 5 can get special education help through the district by dual enrolling (Iowa Code § 299A.9(3), under § 299A.8); elsewhere, ask your district what it offers a homeschooled child. Trellis keeps the same records either way, and an accommodation belongs in the notes of the course it applies to.

The state you live in now, from the day you arrive; a military family follows the state it lives in too, and the installation's school liaison office is the place to confirm a mid-year move. Several states set a window after a move: Minnesota asks for the report within 15 days of moving out of a district (Minn. Stat. § 120A.24, subd. 1(a)(3)), New York for the notice within 14 days (8 NYCRR § 100.10(b)), North Dakota within 14 days of a move (NDCC § 15.1-23-02), South Dakota a new notification within 30 (SDCL § 13-27-7). Your new state's page has the order: requirements by state.

It depends on the state. Minnesota asks for class schedules, copies of instructional materials and a description of how achievement is assessed; Wisconsin sets hours and subjects and files one report, and because nothing else is submitted your own hour and subject records are what answer a question if one ever comes; New York asks for an attendance record and a set of yearly filings. Your state's page says exactly which: requirements by state. Whatever the state asks, the same ordinary work answers it: a calendar of what was done, a learning log, grades, and for high school a transcript. The Grades, Logs, and Year-End Records guide shows how Trellis keeps them.

It depends on the state. Minnesota asks for a yearly test; North Dakota tests in grades 4, 6, 8 and 10; New York asks for an annual assessment that is a standardized test in some grades and a written narrative in others; Iowa asks for a yearly evaluation on Pathway 3 only; Wisconsin, South Dakota and Texas require no test. Your state's page says which: requirements by state.

Yes. Community colleges and the most selective universities alike admit homeschooled applicants. A homeschooled applicant files the same application as anyone else and supplies the pieces a school's counseling office would normally send: a transcript the parent issues, course descriptions, and often the counselor's report. The college planning page shows what 51 flagship universities publish, state by state, and what a transcript should carry.

At any test center, registered the same way as everyone else. The registration asks for a high school code; homeschoolers use the home-school number each testing company sets aside (the College Board's is 970000, the ACT's is 969999, confirmed on ACT's code lookup). Scores go to the colleges you name.

No diploma, since the parent issues that in every state, but yes to the transcript: Trellis builds it from the courses you plan and the work your children check off, prints it on one page with the grading scale, and reads it against your state's reference table as credits accumulate. What colleges look for is on college planning, state by state, and the High School & Transcripts guide covers the four-year board.

Most homeschooled kids get it from co-ops, sports, church, 4-H, library programs, and the neighborhood. Some states let a homeschooled student join public-school sports and activities under their own rules. The ten step-by-step state guides say whether theirs does; for any other state, ask your district or the state's high-school activities association. Trellis logs activities and service hours so that part of the record is as complete as the academics, and a high-school activity list prints with the transcript.