If you have read how to withdraw a child in any other state, put that order out of your head. Wisconsin runs the other way round, and the sequence is the whole of this page.
File the PI-1206 on or before your child’s last day of attendance. Then withdraw. Not the other way round.
Wisconsin, and no other state in this series
Everywhere else, the withdrawal letter goes first and the state is told afterwards. In Wisconsin, taking your child out before the form is submitted opens a gap in which they are neither enrolled in a school nor registered as home educated, and a district can record that absence as truancy.
The cruel part is that the gap opens when you are being kind. A child who cannot face another morning gets kept home on the day it becomes obvious, and the paperwork follows that evening. In every other state that is fine. Here it is the one thing to avoid.
What the form is, and what it is not
It is the PI-1206, filed online with the Department of Public Instruction. It is a statement of enrollment in your home-based private educational program and an affirmation that the program meets the statutory requirements.
It is not an application. Neither the Department of Public Instruction nor your school district has authority to approve it, deny it, or monitor what you do afterwards. There are no site visits, no curriculum audits and no annual check-ins. Once it is filed, the state’s involvement ends until you file again.
The window has a floor as well as a ceiling
The annual filing runs from the third Friday in September to October 15. Both ends matter. Filing early is as wrong as filing late, because the form reports your enrollment as it stands on the third Friday in September, and in August that day has not happened yet.
This one catches careful people.
A parent who sits down in August to get the year’s admin out of the way is doing the responsible thing and filing a statement about a date that does not exist yet. Nothing else in this series has a floor under its deadline. Put the third Friday in September in the calendar, not the summer.
What Wisconsin asks of the program
- 875 hours of instruction each school year
Hours for the year, not days and not a daily minimum. How you distribute them is yours: four long days, year round, or in blocks. Keep a record of them, for yourself. - A sequentially progressive curriculum
The statute’s own phrase, covering reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies, science and health. Sequentially progressive means it builds; it does not mean anybody grades it. - Nothing submitted
No test scores, no portfolio, no attendance return. The records you keep are for your own protection and are not sent anywhere. - No qualification of the parent
There is no diploma requirement and no credential to hold.
One question this page will not answer, because no source answered it plainly enough to be worth trusting: whether the 875 hours are reduced for a family starting in February rather than September. Ask the Department of Public Instruction in writing and keep the reply. A guess here would have you either padding a log or believing you had fallen short.
Where Wisconsin sits in the series
West Virginia is the near miss, and worth naming so the difference is clear. Both states file lightly and neither inspects anything afterwards. What differs is the calendar: West Virginia asks once and never again, Wisconsin asks every year inside a window barely four weeks wide.
| State | Which comes first | How often you file |
|---|---|---|
| Tennessee | Withdrawal, then the notice | Yearly |
| Utah | Withdrawal, then the notice | Once |
| Washington | Withdrawal, then the declaration | Yearly, by September 15 |
| West Virginia | Withdrawal, then the notice | Once |
| Wisconsin | The form, then the withdrawal | Yearly, inside a window that opens and closes |
Timing a Wisconsin withdrawal?
Fifteen minutes on the phone covers the order to do things in, what the PI-1206 asks for, and how to keep an hours record you will not resent. No records required to have the conversation, and deciding against it costs nothing.
What leaving actually requires
- The PI-1206 filed FIRST
On or before the last day of attendance. This is the step that is out of order compared with every other state, and it is the one that protects your child from a truancy record. - A withdrawal letter to the school, after that
Name the last day of attendance and deliver it so receipt can be shown. The school keeps your child on its roll until somebody tells it otherwise. - The confirmation of your filing, saved
Save or print it the moment it is accepted. It is the document that closes the question if anybody ever asks about those days. - An hours record started on day one
875 across the year is comfortable if it is logged as you go and unpleasant to reconstruct in May. Nobody collects it, and you will still want it. - A calendar note for the third Friday in September
Next year’s filing window opens then and closes on October 15. It does not move to suit you, and it does not open early. - The transcript and immunization records
Request both in the withdrawal letter, along with course descriptions for anything half finished. Schools release them readily while the student is fresh in mind and slowly a year later.
Doing it in order
Pick the last day of attendance first
Everything else hangs off it, because the filing has to land on or before it. Choose the date before you tell anybody, including your child, so nothing gets ahead of the paperwork.
File the PI-1206
Online with the Department of Public Instruction, on or before that day. Save the confirmation.
Send the withdrawal letter
Now, and not before. Email the principal and the registrar together; the reply is your proof. Ask in the same letter for the transcript, immunization records, and course descriptions for any course in progress.
Start the hours log the first day of instruction
Whatever shape your week takes. The total is what matters and the total is easiest to reach five hours at a time.
Put next September in the calendar now
The third Friday, not the first of the month, and not August. The window is short and it has a floor.
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, after the PI-1206 is filed.
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]. [He/She/They] will be enrolled in a home-based private educational program, and the PI-1206 statement of enrollment has been filed with the Department of Public Instruction.
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 Wisconsin school. This page has given the order to do things in, named the form, set out both ends of the filing window, quoted the 875 hours and the sequentially progressive curriculum, and said plainly that nobody approves or inspects your program. What it will not do is tell you which route to take, or suggest that enrolling here satisfies or replaces the PI-1206. That form is owed to the Department of Public Instruction whatever school your child attends next, and the choice belongs to your household, least of all to a school that gains from your enrollment. Ask the department in writing, and keep the reply.
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 statute is at the Wisconsin Legislature’s own page for 118.165, and the filing sits at the Department of Public Instruction. 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.