Homeschooling in Alabama
What Alabama actually asks of a family teaching their own children. Written plainly, and honest where the answer is that nobody asks for anything.
United StatesFiling requiredWho is in charge
Local school district (enrollment notice); the church school itself for day-to-day oversight
Who actually reviews your child
The church school's administrator. The district receives the enrollment notice only.
What you must file
Church school enrollment notice
On first enrolling the child in the church school
Goes to: Local school district
Signed by both the parent and the church-school administrator. Filed once, not annually.
Attendance register
n/a
How often: continuous
Goes to: Kept by the church school; reported as the State Board requires
Shows enrollment and every absence of a half-day or more.
The part the paperwork does not cover
Filing on time is the easy half. The harder half is the year in between: showing what your child actually learned, in words the reviewer recognises, without turning your home into a school.
That is what this tool is for. You say what your child did, in a sentence. It maps that to the published standards we hold for Alabama, which today are Mathematics (487 of 496) and Science (502 of 535). Those figures count the topics we carry for ages 5 to 12 that cite one of Alabama's published standards. We do not hold Alabama's own standards for English and Social Studies yet, and they are being added. Physical Education is not in the app for Alabama yet. A moment in any of those subjects is kept on the general map for your child's age and named that way in the record, so the record never cites Alabama's curriculum where we hold none of it. Then it builds the record you can hand over the day someone asks. See how it works.
Other places in United States
Sources last checked on 2026-08-11: instructional-services.alsde.edu. That is the date we checked, not the date the rule last changed.