Idaho asks for no notice, no registration, no testing and no approval before a family homeschools. Every guide says so and stops there, as though nothing were being measured at all. Something is. Idaho just borrowed its measuring sticks from the school you are about to leave.
The whole framework is one section of the attendance law, and it applies to a child who, in the statute’s own words, “has attained the age of seven (7) years at the time of the commencement of school in his district, but not the age of sixteen (16) years.” For that child, the duty is this:
instructed in subjects commonly and usually taught in the public schools of the state of Idaho
Idaho Code § 33-202
And the span of the school year is measured the same borrowed way: a period in each year equal to that in which the public schools are in session. No official will ever ask you to prove either in advance. There is no office to file with and no one whose job is to say yes. But the standard exists, and both of its yardsticks point at the public schools themselves.
Which makes your exit paperwork the reference copy
Read those yardsticks next to what you are doing this week and one practical move falls out. The school your child attends today teaches, by definition, the subjects commonly and usually taught in Idaho’s public schools, on a calendar equal to itself. When you request your child’s records on the way out, ask for the course list and curriculum overview too. That single sheet is the plainest reference for the standard your homeschool now answers to, it costs nothing to ask for, and it is far easier to get this week than in some hypothetical conversation years from now.
The five words most guides skip
The statute also says who may do the instructing, and it is more generous than people assume:
privately instructed by, or at the direction of, his parent or guardian
Idaho Code § 33-202
“Or at the direction of.” The parent conducts; the teaching may come from elsewhere.
Idaho’s own words allow instruction the parent directs rather than delivers: a tutor, a co-op, a structured program with its own teachers. What the statute keeps with the parent is the direction. Whether any particular arrangement fits your household under § 33-202 is your judgment to make in a state that deliberately leaves it with you; the words above are what the law actually says.
The statute itself is short and worth the two minutes: section 33-202 on the Idaho Legislature’s site, and the practical picture from families who work under it sits at Homeschooling in Idaho’s legal pages.
What leaving actually requires
- A clean break with the school your child attends
Nothing in Idaho law closes a school’s enrollment roll for you. A short withdrawal letter, delivered so receipt can be shown, is what separates a homeschooler from an enrolled student who stopped showing up. - Nothing filed with the state
There is no notice of intent, no registration, no form. A district office that asks you to file one is describing another state’s law. - Nothing filed with the district either
The district’s role ends at receiving your withdrawal letter for the school being left. - No testing, ever
Idaho requires no assessments of homeschooled students at any grade. - The standard, kept privately
Subjects commonly and usually taught, across a term equal to the public schools’ own. Nobody checks in advance; a family simply wants to be able to show it if a question ever comes.
Where Idaho sits in the series
Four states, and the measuring stick is in a different hand in each.
| State | Is anything filed? | What measures the homeschool after |
|---|---|---|
| Colorado | Notice, to a district the family picks | Evaluations at five set grades |
| Connecticut | Nothing | Equivalent instruction, shown only if asked |
| Delaware | A school is registered with the state | Two dated reports a year |
| Idaho | Nothing | The public schools’ own subjects and term, kept privately |
Idaho is the only row whose standard is written as a mirror: the homeschool is measured against whatever the public schools commonly and usually do. Which is exactly why the course list of the school you are leaving belongs in your folder, and why a guide that only says “Idaho requires nothing” has handed you half the sentence.
Setting up the year the statute describes?
Fifteen minutes on the phone covers the withdrawal letter, what the records request should include, and how a parent-directed program maps onto subjects commonly and usually taught. No records required to have the conversation, and deciding against it costs nothing.
Doing it in order
Pick the last day and the first day
The last day at the current school and the first day of instruction at home, ideally adjacent, so there is no stretch where your child is on a roll as absent.
Send the withdrawal letter so receipt can be shown
Email to the principal and the registrar together works, because the reply is your proof. This letter, not any state form, is the whole of Idaho’s exit paperwork.
Ask for the records AND the course list
Transcript, immunization records, course descriptions for anything half finished – and the school’s course list or curriculum overview. That last sheet is the plainest reference for the subjects commonly and usually taught, and it is easiest to get while your child is still enrolled.
Sketch the year against the two yardsticks
Subjects that track what the public schools commonly teach, across a term equal to theirs. A one-page plan that says which program or materials carry each subject is more than the state will ever ask to see, which is precisely why it is worth having.
Keep it all in one folder
The dated withdrawal letter, the course list, the plan, and samples of work as the year runs. Idaho asks for none of it on a schedule; a family simply wants it findable on the one day somebody asks.
The withdrawal letter, ready to send
Short is correct. This goes to the school your child attends now, addressed to the principal and copied to the registrar.
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 privately instructed at the direction of [his/her/their] parent or guardian, as provided for by Idaho Code § 33-202.
Please update your enrollment records accordingly and confirm receipt of this letter by reply. Please also send a complete transcript, immunization records, course descriptions for any course in progress, and the school’s current course list or curriculum overview 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 an Idaho one. Whether any particular arrangement, including a structured online program directed by a parent, satisfies § 33-202 for your household is a judgment Idaho deliberately leaves with the family, and this page has not made it for you. What it has done is quote the statute’s actual words, both yardsticks and the five that most guides skip, with the legislature’s own text linked so you can read the sentences yourself.
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.