If you live in Texas and wish to home school, you are in an excellent state in which to pursue this form of education for your children. Setting up a Texas home school is quite simple. If you are wondering whether you should take your children out of the Texas public school system and home school them, here is what you need to do.
There is no legal requirement that says that you need to contact the superintendent of your school district before you set up your Texas home school. In fact, all you need to do is purchase a curriculum and you are ready to start teaching! However, you do need to realize that if you pull your children out of the public school system and start teaching them at home without any explanation, the school is going to wonder what happened. You may have a truancy officer knocking on your door.
The best way to avoid any confusion about your intention to school your children at home is to inform the principal of the school your child currently is attending in writing that you intend to set up a Texas home school. You can send this letter via certified mail so that you know it was received. Keep in mind that the school is going to want to try to keep your children enrolled to receive the funding that they receive per student, so they may tell you that you must come into the office or fill out a form in order to set up a home school. Do not be intimidated by this request. Texas home school law does not require you to do anything to set up your home school other than purchase a curriculum.
If your child is not enrolled in the Texas public school system, you do not need to do anything to set up your Texas home school other than purchase your curriculum. If someone from the state or school district contacts you, do not let the representative into your home. You need to ask for any requests in writing, and then you need to contact your local home school support group to make sure that what is being requested of you is completely legal.
What curriculum should you buy for your Texas home school? Your home school is considered a private school, and the curriculum must meet the requirements of the state. That means your curriculum must cover math, reading, spelling, grammar, and citizenship training. You must engage in teaching your children, either through computer based teaching, workbooks, written material, trade books, dialogue, or some other form of tangible instruction. You cannot establish a home school where the children do little to no academic work.
While your curriculum needs to cover the appropriate subjects, no part of a Texas home school is subject to approval by the school district. Your home school is a private school and the school district cannot tell you what curricula you can or cannot be using. You are not regulated by the state of Texas in any way.
The public schools are required to complete 170 hours of schooling each year, but this does not apply to your Texas home school. That being said, you do need to ensure that your child is progressing through the curriculum you have chosen at a steady pace. Most home schooled students can finish their school work much faster than those who attend a traditional school, because they work at their own pace and do not have to wait for procedures such as restroom breaks, roll call, and hot lunch lines. You will probably find that when you start home schooling in Texas, your kids have much more free time than they did when they were in school!
