How to Withdraw Your Child From Public School in Louisiana (2026): Step by Step

How Withdrawal Works in Louisiana

You can withdraw your child from a Louisiana public school whenever you decide to. Nothing in R.S. 17:236.1 routes your decision through the school, asks the school to approve it, or makes it wait on paperwork; the statute is between you and the Louisiana Department of Education. An earlier version of this page said the department states in so many words that a school cannot refuse. We have not been able to find that in writing from the LDOE, so we are not putting it in the department's mouth. What we would do: send a short written notice, keep a dated copy, and ask for the records you want in the same message. If a school tells you it will not process the withdrawal, that is worth a call to the LDOE rather than an argument at the front desk.

What the state does ask is that your child does not fall through the gap afterward. Louisiana's compulsory attendance law covers children from 5 to 18. A child in that range needs to be enrolled in a public or nonpublic school, or participating in a BESE-approved home study program. R.S. 17:221 treats a child in an approved home study program as compliant with the attendance law, and Louisiana sets no minimum days or hours for that program, so the constraint on your timing is the gap itself rather than a day count to hit.

For the BESE-approved route the department suggests applying for home study before you withdraw, and that is worth doing where you can, because review takes up to 14 business days. Suggested is not required. The guidelines say families wishing to withdraw their students to pursue a BESE-approved home study option may do so before the department's approval arrives.

Step 1: Withdraw Your Child

Tell the school. A short written note is enough, and it gives you a dated record, though no particular form of words is required of you. Include your child's name and the date you are withdrawing. Ask for the records you want at the same time, since it is easier while you are still in contact: transcripts, immunization records, and any assessment results the school holds.

The school updates its enrollment. Nothing in R.S. 17:236.1 makes your withdrawal conditional on an approval letter, a curriculum plan or any other document, so there is nothing you have to produce first. If a school asks for one anyway, say that the statute requires nothing of you at this stage and ask what they are relying on. If that goes nowhere, take it to the LDOE rather than to the front desk.

Step 2: Choose Your Route and File

Louisiana recognizes two ways to educate a child outside the public and nonpublic school systems. They are not interchangeable, and neither one can draw on the LA GATOR Scholarship, which state law bars both of them from.

The BESE-approved home study program is the route most families take. You apply to the Louisiana Department of Education, online through its application system, or on paper where a family cannot get online. Submit the initial application no later than 15 days after your home study program begins. It asks for the child's name, grade level and date of birth, your contact details, the school previously attended, an immunization statement for children who are 11, and an assurance statement. A certified copy of the child's birth certificate goes with it. Review takes up to 14 business days, and you receive an approval letter that is worth keeping somewhere you can reach quickly.

The second route is registering as a nonpublic school not seeking state approval. You complete the department's annual attendance submission, and the confirmation is valid for one year. Read the department's warning before choosing it: collecting that information does not serve as confirmation that students are meeting compulsory attendance laws. The department's own comparison of the two routes is blunter than any summary of it: on this route "the diploma is not recognized by the state" and "students are ineligible for TOPS." A BESE-approved home study diploma carries both. If either matters to your family, that sentence is the decision.

We compare both routes in our Louisiana homeschooling guide. Before you start teaching, a free reading assessment shows where your child's skills sit, so you can match curriculum to where instruction needs to begin rather than to the grade on the paperwork.

Step 3: Handle the Notification Rules

The two routes put the duty to notify the old school in different places, and this is the part families miss.

On the BESE-approved route, the department suggests you send a copy of your approval letter to the school your child left, once it arrives. You are not the only channel. Under R.S. 17:3913 every school district receives a copy of its own district's home study approval letters each month, so the district learns of your program either way.

On the nonpublic-school route the notice is a legal duty rather than a suggestion, and it sits with the school. Under R.S. 17:221.3 a nonpublic school not seeking state approval has ten days from enrolling a student to give the former public school written notice of enrollment. The notice carries at minimum the student's legal name, date of birth, gender and race, and it can take the form of a written request for the transcript. On this route you are the school, so the duty is yours.

What Comes After

On the BESE-approved route there is a renewal. File it with the department by October 1 of the school year, or within 12 months of your initial approval, whichever falls later, and again when your child moves up a grade. You attach one of three things, and the choice is yours: a packet showing what you taught, standardized test results, or a statement from a teacher certified at your child's grade level.

The packet needs no test and no outside reviewer. The department's own examples of what it can hold are ordinary: an outline of the subjects taught, a list of books and materials used, a statement from someone who observed your child's progress, one or two pages of work per core subject, a report card. Nothing in this goes to your city or parish superintendent. It goes to the Louisiana Department of Education, and the full detail is in our Louisiana homeschooling guide. Use our homeschooling guide to plan what to teach before the first renewal comes around.

Funding Note and Special Education

Louisiana home study families cannot use the LA GATOR Scholarship. Act 1 of the 2024 Regular Session bars a student from taking part in LA GATOR while enrolled in either a BESE-approved home study program or a home study program registered as a nonpublic school not seeking state approval, and the LDOE guidelines say the same. So the route you pick does not change your funding position: neither one is funded. Our LA GATOR and Louisiana homeschooling guide covers what the law says and what the home-based option inside the scholarship really is.

If your child has an Individualized Education Program, the IEP belongs to that public school enrollment and ends with it. What replaces it is a federal question rather than a Louisiana one. Under the rules for parentally placed private school children, 34 C.F.R. Sections 300.130 to 300.144, a child taught at home has no individual right to FAPE, the entitlement an IEP carries inside a public school, and what a district offers instead comes from a proportionate share of federal funds spread across that whole group, which is a much thinner and more variable thing than an IEP. An earlier version of this page said the LDOE states that students on either homeschool route do not qualify under IDEA, Section 504 or the ADA. We could not find the department saying that in writing, so we are not putting it in their mouth. Call your local education agency and ask what they offer a home-studied child in your parish, while your child is still receiving services and the file is open. Keep copies of the IEP and every evaluation whatever the answer, because those documents are yours.

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

Louisiana is not a register-first state, whatever you have read, and this page said otherwise until August 2026. You can withdraw your child today. The paperwork follows, and the deadline that governs it runs from the start of your home study program rather than from the withdrawal: fifteen days.

So the order we would use is this. Tell the school and collect the records while you still have someone's attention. Start teaching. File the BESE application inside the fifteen days, and put October 1 in next year's calendar for the renewal. Do not go hunting for a diploma requirement, because Louisiana does not set one for the teaching parent. Budget for the year yourself, because neither route can use LA GATOR. And if your child is on an IEP, call your local education agency before you withdraw rather than after, because the entitlement does not survive the move.