Homeschooling in Missouri
What Missouri 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
None; a Declaration of Enrollment may be filed with the county recorder but is optional
Who actually reviews your child
No one. Records are produced only in a legal proceeding or on transfer to public school.
What you must file
Instruction log and portfolio
n/a
How often: continuous
Goes to: Kept at home; not submitted
1,000 hours per year, of which at least 600 in reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies and science, and at least 400 of those 600 at the home location. Keep a plan book or daily log, samples of work, and a record of evaluations.
Not required, but often assumed
Declaration of Enrollment
Not required. OPTIONAL under § 167.042. Its only stated purpose is to reduce truancy investigations; it becomes a public record.
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 Missouri, 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 Missouri's published standards. We do not hold Missouri's own standards for English and Social Studies yet, and they are being added. Physical Education is not in the app for Missouri 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 Missouri'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: ed.gov. That is the date we checked, not the date the rule last changed.
Check it yourself: the source we used.