In every other state this series has covered, leaving public school means notifying somebody. Delaware is built differently, and the difference changes what you are actually doing: you do not file a homeschool notice, because Delaware has no such notice. You register a school.
That is the state’s own frame, not a figure of speech. A Delaware homeschool is a nonpublic school, registered with the Delaware Department of Education through the department’s own online system, single-family or multi-family, with no fee. The family founds it, the parent administers it, and the local district is not in the transaction at any point.
What the state asks of a school it does not inspect
Remarkably little, and all of it is calendar rather than curriculum. The department does not provide, endorse, accredit, approve or monitor curriculum for any nonpublic school, sets no subject list, requires no assessments and asks nothing about the teaching parent. What it asks for is two reports a year, each with a date on it:
a statement of pupil enrollment as of the last school day in September, submitted no later than October 5
Delaware Department of Education · nonpublic-school annual reporting
end-of-year attendance, reported on or before July 31
Delaware Department of Education · nonpublic-school annual reporting
Who is enrolled, and how many days school was held. That is the whole job description of a Delaware homeschool administrator, and both dates arrive with no reminder attached. Put them on the family calendar the day you register, because missing a report is the one way a compliant Delaware homeschool becomes a non-compliant one.
The order of operations is the whole trick
Because the registration and the withdrawal are two separate acts with two separate audiences, the risk in Delaware is the gap between them. A child who has left the district school before the family’s nonpublic school exists is, for that stretch, enrolled nowhere, and compulsory attendance law has no category for nowhere.
Register first. Withdraw second. Same week is fine; that order is not optional.
Create the EdAccess account, submit the nonpublic-school application, and keep the confirmation. Then send the withdrawal letter to the current school naming the effective date and the new school of record. The child steps from one enrolled status directly into another, and there is never a morning where the roll has them absent and the family has no answer.
The registration itself starts at the department’s homeschools and private schools pages, and the two reporting duties are laid out on its annual reporting page.
What the registration asks for
- An EdAccess account and the application
The department’s online system carries the whole registration. There is no paper ritual and no fee. - Which kind of school this is
Single-family, teaching your own children, or multi-family. Most households founding a school at the kitchen table are the first kind. - Who administers it
The parent. The title sounds grander than the work, but it is real: the administrator is who the two annual reports come from. - Nothing about curriculum
No book list, no subjects, no hours plan, no assessment scheme. The department’s own position is that it does not approve or monitor any nonpublic school’s curriculum. - Nothing from the district
The registration runs family to state. The district’s only role is receiving your withdrawal letter for the school your child is leaving.
Where Delaware sits in the series
Five states, five different answers to who is on the other side of the table.
| State | What the family does | Who they answer to after |
|---|---|---|
| Arkansas | Notice to the superintendent, on a clock | Their own district |
| Colorado | Notice to a district the family picks | Whichever district they chose |
| Connecticut | Nothing is filed at all | Nobody, unless a question comes |
| Mississippi | A certificate to a county officer | The county |
| Delaware | Registers a school of its own | The state, twice a year, on two dates |
Delaware is the only row where the family ends the process holding an institution. A guide written for a notice state has a Delaware family drafting a letter no office is waiting for, while the registration that actually matters sits unmade.
Founding the school this week?
Fifteen minutes on the phone covers the order of operations, what the transcript request should say, and what the two report dates will need from a household using an accredited online program. No records required to have the conversation, and deciding against it costs nothing.
Doing it in order
Register the nonpublic school first
EdAccess account, application, confirmation saved. Do this while your child is still enrolled at the current school, so the two enrollments meet edge to edge.
Send the withdrawal letter
To the current school, naming the last day of attendance and the new school of record. Deliver it so receipt can be shown; the reply to an email is proof enough.
Ask for the records in the same letter
Full transcript, immunization records, and course descriptions for anything half finished. Records move most easily while the student is still on the roll.
Calendar October 5 and July 31 the same day
The September enrollment statement and the year-end attendance report are the school’s entire reporting life, and no reminder will come. Two recurring calendar entries close the loop for good.
Keep the founding papers together
The registration confirmation, the dated withdrawal letter, and copies of each year’s two reports. That folder is the school’s whole file, and the day anyone asks a question, it is the answer.
The withdrawal letter, ready to send
Short is correct, and in Delaware it leans on the registration you have already made.
Dear Principal [name],
This letter is formal notice that our child, [student full name], date of birth [DOB], currently in grade [grade], is withdrawn from [school] effective [last day of attendance]. Beginning [start date], [he/she/they] will be enrolled in [name of your registered homeschool], a nonpublic school registered with the Delaware Department of Education.
Please update your enrollment records accordingly and confirm receipt of this letter by reply. Please also send a complete transcript, immunization records, and course descriptions for any course in progress to [address / email].
Thank you for your help.
[Your name]
[Address]
[Telephone]
What we can and cannot tell you
High School of America is an accredited private school based in Florida, not a Delaware one. How a Delaware family using an out-of-state online program should categorize its registration, and whether any particular arrangement satisfies Delaware’s compulsory attendance law, are questions for the department and your household, and this page has not answered them. What it has done is describe the registration and the two reporting dates as the department itself publishes them, with the department’s own pages linked so you are reading the source rather than a summary of one.
If you want a person to talk it through with, that is what the counselor call is for, and it is not a sales appointment. Bring whatever records you have, or none.
The wider picture sits on the requirements state by state, and if you are early enough to still be deciding, the three-route comparison weighs this against staying exactly where you are.