IC 20-33-2-28 Indiana Microschool: 180 Days, Equivalent Instruction, and Attendance

Indiana Code 20-33-2-28 is the legal foundation for every homeschool, learning pod, and independent microschool in the state. It's short — less than 150 words in the actual statute — but those words carry significant weight for any family or founder operating outside the public school system. Here's what the statute actually requires and what it means in practice for multi-family pods and structured microschools.

What IC 20-33-2-28 Actually Says

The statute exempts children from compulsory school attendance at a public school if they are "provided with instruction equivalent to that given in the public schools" by a non-accredited non-public school. The key operative clause: instruction must be "equivalent to that given in the public schools."

Indiana's courts interpreted this standard in the landmark case State v. Peterman (1904), establishing that "equivalent" does not mean identical — it means adequate and comparable in terms of subject matter and duration. That 120-year-old precedent still governs Indiana homeschool and microschool law today, and it remains the most permissive interpretation in the Midwest.

The practical floor that Indiana has established through policy and enforcement history:

1. 180 instructional days per year
2. Instruction in core academic subjects
3. Attendance records maintained and available upon request

That's it. No curriculum approval, no standardized testing, no facility standards, no teacher certification.

The 180-Day Requirement: What Counts

Indiana's 180-day instructional year mirrors the public school standard. But unlike public schools, non-accredited non-public schools (the classification covering most microschools and pods) have significant flexibility in how they structure those days.

What counts as an instructional day:

• Any day during which meaningful academic instruction occurred
• Field trips with explicit academic content (a visit to the Indiana State Museum studying state history counts; a family vacation that happens to include a museum does not)
• Project-based learning days where students are actively engaged in documented academic work
• Days spent at homeschool co-op classes or shared instruction with other pod families
• Hybrid model days where students work independently on assigned academic tasks with a facilitator present

What does not count:

• Days when the pod is closed (holidays, sick days, family events)
• Days where the primary activity is recreational without academic structure
• Administrative or organizational days with no student instruction

Scheduling flexibility for microschools:

The 180-day requirement gives microschool founders substantial design freedom. Consider:

• A 4-day school week running 46 weeks satisfies 180 days while giving families a consistent three-day weekend
• A 3-day intensive model (Monday-Wednesday-Friday, 60 weeks) technically reaches 180 — but a 3-day model running a standard school year of ~36 weeks falls short at 108 days and needs supplemental home instruction days to compensate
• A year-round model running 36 weeks at 5 days/week comfortably exceeds 180 days

Most Indiana microschool founders operating a 4- or 5-day model for a conventional September-through-May school year hit 180 days without careful tracking. Where precise counting matters most is in hybrid and part-time pod models where families split instructional time between the pod and home.

Equivalent Instruction: What Subjects Are Required

"Equivalent to that given in the public schools" is interpreted to mean comparable coverage of the core academic disciplines. Indiana's public schools teach English/language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies at every grade level. A non-accredited non-public school should cover these four domains.

There is no prescribed curriculum, textbook series, or scope and sequence. Indiana does not review your curriculum or tell you which materials to use. The equivalency standard is conceptual — your students are receiving real academic instruction in real academic subjects — not procedural.

This means:

• Classical curriculum (Latin, Socratic discussion, Great Books) qualifies
• Charlotte Mason approaches (narration, living books, nature study) qualify
• Project-based and experiential models qualify
• Unschooling-adjacent approaches that maintain documented learning across core domains can qualify — though families using this approach should be more intentional about documentation

What clearly doesn't qualify: dropping all academic structure and calling it school. Indiana's minimal regulation depends on the good-faith interpretation that "non-accredited non-public schools" are genuinely providing education, not simply evading compulsory attendance.

Indiana Microschool Attendance Reporting: The Practical Reality

Indiana does not require microschools or homeschool families to submit attendance reports to any agency. The "available upon request" standard means you maintain records and produce them if officially asked — not that you file them annually.

Who can request your records:

Indiana Code 20-33-2-28 specifies that records must be made available to the Secretary of Education or the superintendent of the local public school corporation upon request. In practice, these requests are rare. The Indiana Department of Education does not conduct routine audits of non-accredited non-public schools. Local superintendents occasionally request records when a family has been reported as a truancy concern by neighbors or former school staff, but this is uncommon.

What your attendance records need to contain:

Indiana law does not specify a format. The minimum defensible record includes:

• The school name (your pod's name)
• Student names and dates of birth
• Dates instruction occurred
• An indication of which students were present on each date

For a single-family homeschool, a simple paper calendar with an X on each school day satisfies this. For a multi-family pod with 6-12 students, a more structured attendance log by student and date is both more defensible and more practically useful.

The attendance log for multi-family pods:

When you're tracking attendance for multiple students from different families, your attendance log also functions as a communication tool with families — confirming instructional days for their own records, especially if they're claiming home instruction days that supplement pod days. The Indiana Micro-School & Pod Kit at /us/indiana/microschool/ includes a multi-student attendance log template pre-configured for pod operations.

High School Withdrawal and the 20-33-2-28 Connection

When a high school student withdraws from Indiana public school to attend a non-accredited non-public school (including a microschool or pod), the withdrawing school is required to document the reason as "Withdrawal to Non-Accredited Non-Public School Located in Indiana." This is the withdrawal form, not a registration form for your pod.

The form goes to the public school, not to your microschool. From the public school's perspective, the student is withdrawing from their compulsory attendance obligation because they'll be satisfying it through a non-accredited non-public school — as permitted under IC 20-33-2-28.

Your microschool receives a new student. You don't file anything with the state. You simply begin including that student in your attendance records and instructional program.

What Happens if You Don't Comply

Indiana's enforcement of IC 20-33-2-28 is passive. There is no proactive inspection or audit system. The enforcement mechanism is complaint-driven: if a neighbor, former teacher, or ex-spouse reports a concern about a child's educational status, the local superintendent or the Department of Child Services may investigate.

If an investigation finds that a family or pod is not providing instruction equivalent to public school standards — specifically, not providing 180 days and not keeping records — the family could face educational neglect findings. These are serious: Indiana's Department of Child Services can become involved in educational neglect cases, and the legal consequences can include custody implications.

This is why the "minimal regulation = no responsibility" interpretation is dangerous. Indiana's permissive framework is a gift to genuine educators who need flexibility. It's not a loophole for educational abandonment.

For microschool founders, the practical protection is straightforward: keep good attendance records, run a genuine 180-day program, and cover core academic subjects. Any founder doing these three things is fully compliant with IC 20-33-2-28 and has nothing to worry about.

Applying the Standard to Common Pod Scenarios

Scenario: 5-family drop-off pod, Monday-Thursday, part-time educator IC 20-33-2-28 compliance: track instructional days, ensure you hit 180 over the academic year (or that families supplement with home instruction days), maintain an attendance log per student. Compliant as structured.

Scenario: 3-day-a-week co-op where families share teaching Attendance records track co-op days per student. Families need to document home instruction days separately to reach 180. The co-op days count as "instruction equivalent to that given in public schools" when they involve academic content.

Scenario: Year-round microschool, 10 students, paid facilitator, 4 days/week IC 20-33-2-28 compliance is straightforward. Year-round scheduling more than covers 180 days. Attendance records per student, documentation that instruction covers core subjects. This is exactly the model IC 20-33-2-28 was designed to accommodate.

The complete operational templates for all three scenarios — attendance logs, instructional day tracking worksheets, and curriculum documentation forms — are included in the Indiana Micro-School & Pod Kit at /us/indiana/microschool/.

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