How to Homeschool in Mississippi (2026): Certificate of Enrollment and What the Law Requires

Mississippi's Home School Law

Mississippi Code §37-13-91 is the legal foundation for home schooling in Mississippi. The law gives parents the right to provide home instruction as an alternative to public school enrollment, subject to two requirements: filing a Certificate of Enrollment with your county school attendance officer each year. Beyond those two requirements, Mississippi does not mandate testing, portfolio review, third-party evaluation, or a parent credential. The program you design, the curriculum you choose, and the daily schedule you set are entirely your own decisions.

Mississippi's compulsory school age runs from 6 through 17 under §37-13-91. Children in that range who are not enrolled in a public school, a legitimate private school, or a registered home school are subject to the attendance law. Children below age 6 and above age 17 are not subject to the compulsory attendance requirement, though most families continue home instruction through high school graduation regardless.

Mississippi does not license or accredit home schools. The certificate filing is an administrative notice, not an approval process. The school district does not review your curriculum, approve your program, or assess your child's progress as part of the filing. You file the form, they record it, and your home school year begins.

Filing the Certificate of Enrollment

Each year, file a Certificate of Enrollment with the school attendance officer for the county where you reside. This is not the district superintendent's office. The school attendance officer is a separate role, employed by the State Department of Education under Mississippi Code Section 37-13-89, and the statute names that office as the one the certificate is returned to. The deadline is September 15. If you begin home schooling after September 15, the statute says you may file at a later date and sets no window, so there is no second deadline to miss. File as soon as you have the form anyway, because the filing is what puts your program on record. The certificate asks for each child's name, address, telephone number and date of birth, the same details for you as the parent or guardian, a short description of the education the child is receiving, and your signature and the date. It does not ask for a grade level, and confirms your intent to provide home instruction for the coming school year.

Mississippi does not have a universal statewide form, though many districts have their own version. Contact your county attendance office at the start of each school year to obtain the current certificate form and confirm the submission method it uses. Some accept email submission; others require delivery in person or by mail. Get the current form directly from the district rather than using an old copy, since formats can change between years.

Keep a copy of every certificate you file and any written confirmation you receive from the district. That copy is your proof of compliance. If the district later questions your child's enrollment status, a dated copy of the filed certificate is the document that closes the conversation. File the certificate, copy it, and put it in a folder with your school year records.

Filing on time is the most important compliance step in Mississippi. A late or missing certificate creates exposure under the compulsory attendance law. Mark September 15 on your calendar before summer begins, and set a reminder in mid-August to pull the form from your county attendance office, complete it, and submit it well before the deadline.

What Mississippi Does Not Require

An earlier version of this page told you Mississippi requires five subjects and 180 days of instruction a year. Neither is in the law, and we have removed both. Mississippi Code Section 37-13-91 asks for one thing: that your child is enrolled in a legitimate home instruction program, meaning a real educational program rather than a way of avoiding school. It names no subjects. It sets no minimum number of days. The 180-day rule people repeat is a public school rule, and it does not reach nonpublic schools, which is the category home instruction falls into.

So the curriculum is yours. You can teach reading, math, science and social studies because they are worth teaching, not because a statute lists them. You can build a year around a single deep interest, run a classical or unit-study or unschooling approach, or follow a boxed curriculum start to finish. You can school four days a week, take January off, or run year round. None of that puts you out of compliance, because there is no compliance standard to fall short of beyond the certificate itself.

Keeping records is still worth your time, for your reasons rather than the state's. A running log of what you covered makes a high school transcript possible, gives you something concrete when a relative asks what your child is learning, and shows you in March whether a subject has quietly gone untouched since October. Mississippi never asks to see it. Keep whatever amount of record you would want to have if you moved to a state that does ask, and no more.

No Testing, No Portfolio, No Evaluator

Mississippi imposes no standardized testing requirement on home school families. There is no annual assessment obligation, no minimum score standard, and no results to submit to the district or any state agency. There is no portfolio requirement and no annual review by a third-party evaluator. The compliance picture for a Mississippi home school family is short: file the annual certificate by September 15. That is the whole of it. Records are worth keeping for your own use, and no one asks to see them. Mississippi leaves everything else to the family.

Many Mississippi families choose to administer standardized tests on a voluntary basis. Nationally normed instruments like the Iowa Assessments or the Stanford Achievement Test are commonly used by Mississippi home schoolers to track academic progress and build documentation for college applications. But the decision to test, which instrument to use, and what to do with the results are entirely the family's call. Some families test every year; others test only in the middle and high school years as college planning approaches.

No Parent Credential Required

Mississippi does not require the teaching parent to hold any teaching certificate, college degree, or other academic credential. Any parent may provide home instruction under §37-13-91 regardless of their own educational background. The law's only requirement is the certificate filing. The parent's credential is not part of the legal framework.

This makes Mississippi more accessible than states like Virginia, Washington, or Minnesota, which impose parent qualification requirements as part of their home school laws. In Mississippi, the legal question is whether the certificate is filed, not whether the parent holds a particular credential. Parents from any educational background may home school in Mississippi.

Withdrawing from a Mississippi Public School

Send a written notice to your child's school that you are withdrawing them to provide home instruction. The school updates its enrollment records. Then file your Certificate of Enrollment with your county school attendance officer, by September 15 if you are starting at the beginning of a school year, or as soon as you reasonably can if you are starting at another point in the year. Keep a copy of the withdrawal letter and your certificate filing together in your school records. For the full step-by-step, see our guide to withdrawing from public school in Mississippi.

If your child has an IEP, the IEP itself belongs to public school enrollment and ends with it. Whether any services continue in another form is a question Mississippi has not answered in writing. The state's equitable-services rule covers children whose parents place them in private schools, and it never says whether home instruction counts as one, so no statute or Department of Education regulation we could find settles it either way. An earlier version of this page said the entitlements end. That was stated more firmly than the sourcing supports. Call your district's special education office before you send your withdrawal notice, while the file is still open, and ask what happens to the IEP and whether the district serves home-instructed children with disabilities. Keep copies of the current IEP and any evaluations whatever the answer, because those documents are yours.

High School, Transcripts, and Diplomas in Mississippi

Mississippi does not set graduation requirements or diploma standards for home school families. You establish the criteria, track credits through grades 9 to 12, and issue the diploma when your student meets them. A parent-issued Mississippi home school diploma and transcript are what your student presents to a college. Mississippi's public universities and community colleges are used to homeschool applicants and the state's own grant office processes homeschool transcripts routinely, though the Institutions of Higher Learning system does not publish a policy addressing home school applicants by name, so confirm requirements with the specific school. Employers and licensing boards each set their own rules, which Mississippi law does not govern.

The University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University, and Mississippi's community colleges are experienced reviewing home school applications. Most ask for ACT scores alongside the parent-issued transcript. Mississippi is an ACT-focused state: most high school students sit for the ACT, and home school applicants should plan for it starting in grade 10 or 11. A well-organized transcript listing courses by name, credit hours, and grades by year is the standard document. For competitive programs, brief course descriptions that explain what was covered strengthen the application. A reading and academic assessment before high school gives you a factual baseline for planning the four-year curriculum.

Mississippi's community colleges are broadly open to home school graduates. Dual enrollment for high school students is available at many Mississippi community colleges; contact the specific institution for their home school applicant requirements. Some allow students to begin dual enrollment as early as 10th grade. The full planning guide walks through building a high school transcript, selecting dual enrollment courses, and preparing a competitive college application file from a Mississippi home school. For the full step-by-step, including how the MTAG and MESG state grants read your transcript, see our guide to homeschooling high school in Mississippi.

No State Funding for Mississippi Home School Families

Mississippi does not have an education savings account or voucher program for families providing home instruction under §37-13-91. All curriculum, materials, testing fees, and other educational costs are the family's responsibility. Mississippi families cover these costs entirely from their own budget with no state reimbursement or scholarship program available at this time.

A Note from Homeschool Teacher Guide: What This Really Means for You

Mississippi's law asks very little of home school families. The certificate is a one-page form filed once a year. There is no subject list to satisfy and no day count to hit, which surprises families who arrive expecting one. The one thing we see Mississippi families miss is the September 15 deadline, not because the form is hard but because the summer break blurs into the new school year and the date passes unnoticed.

Set a reminder in mid-August to pull the form from your county attendance office, complete it, and file it before the 15th. Do not wait until September. That single step is the whole compliance job. Everything else -- curriculum, schedule, pace, testing or no testing -- is yours to decide. Mississippi gives you the room; the planning guide helps you use it well.