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

How Withdrawal Works in Mississippi

Mississippi establishes home schooling through a Certificate of Enrollment filed with your county school attendance officer. There is no approval to wait for, no testing, no portfolio, and no parent credential. You file the certificate, notify your child's public school in writing, and the move is complete. The certificate has an annual deadline of September 15. If you are beginning home schooling at another point in the year, the statute says you may send it at a later date and puts no window on that, so there is no mid-year deadline to miss. File it promptly all the same.

The certificate is the legal record that your child is enrolled in a home school program in Mississippi. Without it on file, the school attendance officer can send you a written notice of noncompliance, and you then have ten days to put the certificate in before it becomes a violation of Section 37-13-91, which is prosecuted against the parent under Section 97-5-39 as contributing to the neglect of a child. That reads heavier than it is: the notice comes first, the ten days are yours, and filing the certificate ends it. With it filed, you have met the state's primary paperwork requirement and can begin instruction on your timeline.

For the full picture on what comes after the certificate, including what Mississippi does and does not require and how to keep records that serve you, see the Mississippi homeschooling guide.

Step 1: File the Certificate of Enrollment

File a Certificate of Enrollment with the school attendance officer for your county. The certificate identifies each child you are home schooling by name, address, telephone number and date of birth, gives your own contact details as the parent, carries a short description of the education you are providing, and is signed and dated, and confirms your intent to provide home instruction. Contact your county attendance office directly to obtain the current form; the certificate is not filed with the school your child currently attends or with the school district's general office, but with the county-level attendance officer. That distinction is the most common source of confusion in Mississippi home school withdrawals.

The annual deadline is September 15. If you plan to begin home schooling at the start of the school year, file the certificate well before that date to give yourself time to obtain the form and complete the process. If you begin home schooling at another point in the year, the statute allows you to send the certificate at a later date without naming a deadline. Mid-year withdrawals are fully accommodated; you file when you begin rather than waiting for September, and no clock is running against you while you get the form.

You will file a new certificate each school year. It does not carry over from one year to the next. Keep a dated copy of each filing in your records. We walk through the certificate and the ongoing requirements in the Mississippi homeschooling guide. Before you begin teaching, a free reading assessment shows you exactly where your child stands academically right now, so you can start curriculum at the right level from your first lesson.

Step 2: Notify the School

Send your child's public school a short written notice that the child is withdrawing to home school. This step stops attendance tracking at the school level and is separate from the Certificate of Enrollment you file with the county attendance officer. The withdrawal notice tells the school to update its enrollment records; the certificate tells the county that your child is enrolled in a home school program. Both steps together complete the transition cleanly.

A brief note with your child's name, the effective date of withdrawal, and a statement that you are home schooling is enough. Keep a copy of the notice together with your certificate filing. If the school contacts you about attendance after the withdrawal, your dated notice and certificate copies resolve the question.

For a mid-year withdrawal, send the school notice and file the certificate close together so your child moves out of the public enrollment without a gap on the official attendance record. The school updates its records when it receives your notice; the county attendance office updates its records when it receives the certificate.

Step 3: Keep Records and Know Your Duties

Keep your dated Certificate of Enrollment and your withdrawal notice together in your home school records. Request any records you want from the public school at the time of withdrawal: immunization records, report cards, transcripts, and any prior assessment results. Gathering them now is more direct than following up after enrollment is closed, and having them in hand before your first lesson lets you plan curriculum from your child's actual starting point.

After the withdrawal, Mississippi asks nothing further of the curriculum. The statute names no required subjects and sets no minimum number of instructional days for home instruction; the 180-day figure people cite is a public school rule that does not reach home instruction programs. There is no standardized testing requirement, no portfolio you must submit, and no third-party evaluator. Keep a simple log of what you cover anyway, because it makes a transcript possible later and shows you where a subject has gone quiet, but you keep it for yourself and never submit it to anyone.

A free reading assessment gives you a concrete starting point before your first lesson, so you know exactly where your child is rather than guessing. The Mississippi homeschooling guide walks through the annual certificate and what the state leaves entirely to you.

Special Education and Common Snags

If your child has an Individualized Education Program, be careful with what anyone tells you happens next, including us. The IEP itself belongs to public school enrollment and ends with it. What is less clear is whether any services continue in another form. Mississippi's equitable-services rule covers children placed by their parents in private schools and never says whether home instruction counts as one, and no state statute or Department of Education regulation we could find settles it either way. An earlier version of this page said flatly that services end. That was stated more firmly than the sourcing supports.

So this is a question to put to your own district rather than to a website. Call the district's special education office before you send your withdrawal notice, while your child is still enrolled and the file is open, and ask two things: what happens to the current IEP, and whether the district offers any services to home-instructed children with disabilities. Get the answer in writing if you can. Whatever they say, keep a copy of the most recent IEP and any evaluations, because those documents are yours and they are what a private evaluator, a future district, or a college disability office will want to see.

The most common confusion in Mississippi is where to file the Certificate of Enrollment. The certificate goes to your county school attendance officer, not to the school principal and not to the school district's main administrative office. If you send it to the wrong office, your home school may not be properly registered with the county, which can create attendance questions later. Contact your county attendance office directly to get the current form and confirm the correct submission address before you file.

A second point worth clearing up is the timeline for mid-year starts, because an earlier version of this page named a 30-day deadline that is not in the statute. Section 37-13-91 says a family beginning at another point in the year may send the certificate at a later date, and it names no window. Note your actual start date for your own records, file the certificate promptly, and know that there is no mid-year deadline you can miss.

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

Mississippi keeps it simple with one document: the Certificate of Enrollment, filed with your county school attendance officer. File it by September 15 for the year, or as soon as you can if you are withdrawing mid-year, since the statute names no mid-year deadline, and send a short written notice to your child's school so attendance stops. Keep a dated copy of both documents together. The one thing families most often miss is the filing office: the county attendance officer, not the principal.

After the certificate is filed, there is no testing, no portfolio, no evaluator, no required subject list, and no minimum number of school days. Keep a simple attendance log and teach. For planning what to cover, our curriculum planning guide gives you a structured framework to work from. Our Mississippi homeschooling guide covers what the law does and does not expect through the school year.