Homeschooling in Massachusetts
What Massachusetts 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 committee, or the superintendent acting on its behalf
Who actually reviews your child
The local school committee or the superintendent, a genuine approval decision, not a filing.
What you must file
Home education plan, for PRIOR APPROVAL
Before instruction begins; renewed each year
Goes to: School committee / superintendent
Must set out the proposed curriculum, the materials to be used, the number of hours and days of instruction, and the qualifications of the instructing parent. Instruction may not lawfully begin until approved.
Periodic evaluation
As agreed
How often: as set in the approved plan
Goes to: SUBMITTED to the superintendent or school committee
Care and Protection of Charles permits the superintendent or committee to require standardized testing or another form of periodic evaluation as a condition of approval, but a specific method cannot be imposed over the parent's objection where an alternative would serve.
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 Massachusetts, 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 Massachusetts's published standards. We do not hold Massachusetts's own standards for English and Social Studies yet, and they are being added. Physical Education is not in the app for Massachusetts 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 Massachusetts'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
Read at the source on 2026-08-28: the Massachusetts DESE home schooling page at doe.mass.edu. Its words: 'for children of compulsory school age (6-16), home schooling requires advance approval by the district in which the child lives', and the district reviews the proposed plan for content, instructional materials, duration and frequency of instruction, methods of instruction, evaluation, and whether it enables the child to make adequate progress, communicating its decision 'preferably in writing, within a reasonable period'. No fixed calendar deadline exists, which is why this page reads 'as agreed'. This closes the gap flagged on 2026-08-18, when the only source that answered was a FEDERAL ed.gov page self-dated 'last updated November 14, 2016'.
Check it yourself: the authority's own page.