Texas asks almost nothing of you. No form to file, nobody to notify, no permission to request. Parents who have just spent a week researching this usually do not believe it, and then worry they have missed something.
You have not. But the part everyone skips is the part that actually matters, and skipping it is what turns a clean exit into a truancy letter.
Why Texas asks for nothing
In 1994 the Texas Supreme Court decided Texas Education Agency v. Leeper and held that a home school is a private school. Texas does not license, register, or inspect private schools, so there is no roster to join and no agency expecting to hear from you.
Texas Education Code 25.086 exempts a child from compulsory attendance when the child attends a private school whose course of study includes good citizenship. That is the entire test. There is no filing that establishes it and no certificate that proves it.
Which is genuinely simpler than most states. It is also why the withdrawal letter carries more weight here than it does anywhere with a filing requirement.
The letter: not required, and still the whole thing
No Texas statute obliges you to send a withdrawal letter. Send one anyway, on the day you stop attending, because it is the only thing that tells the district your child is exempt rather than absent.
Until that letter lands, your child is a currently enrolled student who is not showing up. The district is not being difficult. Its attendance system has no other way to read an empty seat.
Keep it short. A withdrawal letter needs to do four things:
- Name your child and their date of birth
- State the effective date of withdrawal
- State that your child will be attending a private school, and that the course of study includes good citizenship, tracking the language of 25.086
- Request the student records: unofficial transcript, current grades, and any IEP or 504 documentation
That is the whole letter. It does not need to name the school, explain your reasoning, or ask for anything to be approved. You are informing, not applying.
The authority: who receives it
The campus. Your child’s principal or the campus registrar, at the school your child currently attends.
This is the opposite of most states, where the report climbs to a district superintendent or a state department. In Texas nothing goes to the Texas Education Agency and nothing goes to the state. Sending it upward does not help and can delay the one office that needs it.
Deliver it by email or by hand and keep a dated copy. If you hand deliver, ask the front office to date stamp your copy.
The timeline: no deadline, and a clock anyway
There is no filing deadline, because there is no filing. There is still a clock, and it is the reason to move on day one:
- Three unexcused absences inside four weeks obliges the district to begin truancy prevention measures.
- Ten unexcused absences inside six months in the same school year obliges the district to refer the student to truancy court, within ten school days of the tenth absence.
Those thresholds do not care why the seat is empty. A family that withdrew in good faith and sent nothing can reach the first threshold in under a month, purely on paperwork silence.
What to collect before you go
Request records while your child is still enrolled. An unofficial transcript, a current grade report, immunization records, and any IEP or 504 documentation. Schools handle these routinely for an enrolled student and more slowly once a file has been closed.
If your child has partial credit for a semester in progress, ask specifically how it will be reported. Partial credit is the single most common thing families discover missing months later, when a receiving school is trying to build a transcript.
What Texas does expect, quietly
The Leeper standard asks that instruction be bona fide, use written materials, and cover reading, spelling, grammar, mathematics, and good citizenship. Nobody audits this. It matters because it is the description your exemption rests on, and because those five subjects are the floor rather than the ceiling.
Families who enroll in a school rather than assembling a curriculum are covered on this by the program itself. A student at High School of America follows a full course sequence with a transcript the school maintains, so the question of whether the instruction is bona fide answers itself.
Our counselors read an incoming transcript, tell you which credits carry over, and give you a graduation plan before you commit to anything. Texas families most often arrive mid year, after a campus stopped working and waiting for June stopped being realistic, so enrollment runs year round.
Common questions
Do I have to notify the state of Texas?
No. There is no state notification, no registration, and no agency that tracks private school students. The letter goes to the campus purely to close out attendance.
Is there an official Texas withdrawal form?
No. Some districts offer one as a convenience. A letter of your own is equally valid.
What if the school refuses to accept my letter or asks for a reason?
A campus cannot require approval for an exemption that exists in statute. Deliver the letter, keep your dated copy, and continue. If the conversation becomes difficult, ask that the letter be placed in the student record and note who you gave it to.
Can I withdraw mid year?
Yes. Texas sets no window. The considerations are practical rather than legal: partial credit and records.
What about testing?
Texas requires no standardized testing of private school or home school students, including STAAR.
My child is over 18. Does any of this apply?
Compulsory attendance under Texas Education Code 25.085 runs until the student turns 19 or graduates. An adult student can withdraw on their own behalf, and the records request still matters.
The short version
Write a short letter naming your child, the effective date, and the private school exemption under 25.086. Give it to the campus on the day you stop attending. Request the transcript, the grades, and any IEP or 504 documents in the same letter. Keep a dated copy. Nothing goes to the state, and nothing else is required of you.
If the question on your mind is what comes after the withdrawal rather than the withdrawal itself, the Texas program page covers enrollment, credit transfer, and how the diploma works.