Indiana Homeschool Curriculum Requirements

Indiana is one of the most deregulated homeschool states in the country, and that freedom surprises many families who are used to the rules of public school. If you have been searching for a list of approved curricula, required courses, or mandated textbooks, you will not find one — because no such list exists under Indiana law.

What the state does require is narrower and more flexible than most parents expect. Understanding exactly where the legal boundaries sit, and where they do not, is essential before you withdraw your child and start planning your school year.

What Indiana Law Actually Requires

Indiana Code § 20-33-2-28 is the compulsory attendance statute. It states that a parent satisfies the attendance obligation by providing instruction "equivalent to that given in public schools." That phrase sounds demanding, but a companion statute — IC § 20-33-2-12 — explicitly exempts non-accredited nonpublic schools (the category homeschools fall into) from the curriculum and educational program requirements imposed on public schools.

The practical result is that "equivalent instruction" does not mean replicating the Indiana Academic Standards course by course. It means providing a genuine educational program in the English language. Courts and state agencies have historically interpreted the standard as satisfied as long as the curriculum is broadly reasonable and covers foundational academic disciplines.

The three things Indiana law actually expects from a homeschool are:

• Instruction in English. All teaching must be conducted in the English language.
• 180 days of instruction per year. This is the single concrete metric the state enforces.
• Coverage of foundational subjects. Language arts (reading, writing, spelling, grammar), mathematics, sciences, and social studies form the expected core. IC § 20-30-5-1 also requires instruction on the Indiana and U.S. Constitutions for students in grades six through twelve.

There is no state approval process for curriculum. The IDOE does not review, certify, or reject any curriculum a homeschool family uses. You choose your own materials, your own sequence, and your own instructional method without asking anyone's permission.

Attendance Records in Indiana

IC § 20-33-2-20 requires homeschools to maintain an accurate daily record of attendance. This is one of the few affirmative legal duties Indiana places on homeschooling families, and it is the most important one to take seriously.

The state does not prescribe a specific format. A printed attendance grid, a spreadsheet, a spiral notebook with dates checked off — any contemporaneous log that shows which days instruction occurred satisfies the legal requirement. The key word is "contemporaneous," meaning you record days as they happen rather than reconstructing the log from memory at the end of the year.

Why does this matter? The Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS) uses attendance records as the primary evidence in educational neglect investigations. If a DCS caseworker arrives at your door — which can happen if a school administrator, neighbor, or medical professional files a complaint — the single most effective document you can produce is a completed attendance log showing that instruction is actively taking place. Because Indiana mandates no curriculum submission and no standardized testing, the attendance record often closes an investigation before it escalates further.

The 180-day year generally runs from July 1 through June 30 of the following year to align with Indiana's fiscal educational calendar. If your child attended public school earlier in the same academic year before you withdrew, those days count toward the 180-day total.

Record Keeping Beyond Attendance

Indiana does not legally require homeschool families to maintain curriculum logs, grade records, or portfolios. The attendance record is the only document the state mandates.

That said, keeping additional records serves practical purposes that have nothing to do with state compliance:

College admissions. Universities expect a transcript. If your child plans to apply to a four-year institution, you will need to have documented course names, grades, and credit hours going back to ninth grade. Starting record keeping early eliminates the difficulty of reconstructing years of coursework from memory.

Dual enrollment. Indiana community colleges and universities that accept homeschool students for concurrent enrollment typically require academic records demonstrating course work and readiness.

Driver's license. Indiana's Bureau of Motor Vehicles requires proof of school enrollment or equivalent education for minors seeking a learner's permit or license. Homeschool families can satisfy this requirement, but having documentation of your educational program in order avoids delays.

DCS protection. As described above, a comprehensive portfolio — attendance log, curriculum list, sample work, reading list — provides far stronger protection against an educational neglect allegation than attendance records alone.

A practical record-keeping system for most families includes: a daily attendance log, a list of curriculum and textbooks used each year by subject, a reading log, and (for high school students) a course description sheet and grade log that can later be formatted into a transcript.

Is Testing Required in Indiana?

No. Indiana does not require independent homeschool students to take any standardized test. There is no annual assessment requirement, no portfolio review requirement, and no home visit requirement for families operating as a private non-accredited school.

This is a significant difference from states such as New York or Pennsylvania, where annual testing or portfolio assessments are legally required. Indiana's approach is to leave evaluation entirely in the hands of the parent.

The testing rules change if you accept state funding. Families who use the Choice Scholarship Program (the state's voucher program) must enroll their child in a participating accredited private school — which means the child is no longer legally classified as a homeschooler and becomes subject to ILEARN state assessments. Similarly, families using the Indiana Education Scholarship Account (INESA) are subject to additional documentation requirements. But for independent homeschoolers who operate without state financial support, testing is entirely optional.

Many families choose to use standardized tests voluntarily — for college admissions preparation, to gauge academic progress, or to satisfy personal benchmarks. The Iowa Assessments and the CAT (California Achievement Test) are commonly used options that can be administered at home. The choice is yours.

Curriculum Freedom in Practice

Because the state places no curriculum mandates on homeschools, the range of approaches Indiana families use is wide. Some families use structured, textbook-based programs. Others use literature-rich or Charlotte Mason methods. Some combine subjects from different publishers or use free online resources as the primary curriculum. Unschooling — directing learning through the child's interests — is also legally permissible under Indiana's framework.

The IDOE provides a voluntary online enrollment portal, but using it is optional and carries no legal weight. Whether you register through the portal or not has no effect on your legal standing as a homeschool family. Likewise, the IDOE does not track which curriculum you use or review your educational plans.

The practical limit on curriculum freedom is this: if your program would be so narrow or so minimal that a reasonable observer could not describe it as a genuine educational program, you risk being found in non-compliance with the "equivalent instruction" standard. In practice, any honest full-time educational effort covering core academic subjects clears that bar comfortably.

What to Do When You Withdraw

Curriculum freedom and low regulation do not mean the withdrawal process itself is informal. The steps you take when leaving public school determine whether the transition is smooth or whether it triggers truancy flags and administrative friction.

For elementary and middle school students, a written letter of withdrawal sent to the school principal via Certified Mail is the standard approach. For high school students, Indiana law requires you to sign a specific IDOE withdrawal form at the school — failure to sign this form results in the student being classified as a dropout, with the principal required to notify the BMV to revoke or deny any driver's license or learner's permit.

The Indiana Legal Withdrawal Blueprint at /us/indiana/withdrawal covers the full withdrawal process, including grade-level differences, what to do if a school administrator pushes back, how to handle mid-year withdrawals, and what to keep in your records file from day one. It also includes the specific letter templates Indiana law supports and a checklist for the first 30 days of homeschooling.

Indiana's legal framework genuinely does give families significant freedom. Using that freedom well starts with understanding exactly what the law requires — and what it does not.

See more United States homeschool guides →