Kentucky Homeschool Withdrawal Letter: What to Include and Where to Send It

A Kentucky homeschool withdrawal letter — formally called a Notice of Intent to Homeschool, or a Notice of Attendance — is the document you send to your local school district to establish your homeschool as a bona fide private school and notify the district that your child is no longer required to attend public school. Getting this letter right matters. Getting it wrong can result in your child racking up unexcused absences while you wait for the district to sort things out, which is exactly the administrative nightmare you are trying to avoid.

Here is what the letter must contain, what it must not contain, who receives it, and how to send it.

The Legal Basis: KRS 159.160

Kentucky does not have a standalone homeschooling statute. Instead, homeschooling is legal because KRS 159.030 classifies a homeschool as a private school, which is exempt from public school compulsory attendance requirements. The notification requirement lives in KRS 159.160, which governs attendance reporting for private and parochial schools.

Under KRS 159.160, the authorities of any private school — which includes you as the operator of your homeschool — must notify the local board of education of the school's existence and its enrolled students. This notification is not a request for approval. It is a statutory filing, the same way a private brick-and-mortar school would file notice of its enrollment with the district.

What the Letter Must Include

The statute specifies exactly three things your notice must contain:

1. The name of your homeschool. Before you write the letter, you need to name your school. It can be anything: "Smith Family Academy," "Bluegrass Home School," "Cedar Ridge Academy." You do not register this name anywhere — you simply choose it and use it in the letter. This naming step is what legally establishes your homeschool as a bona fide private school in Kentucky's eyes.

2. The names, ages, and places of residence of each pupil enrolled. For most families this is one or two children. List each child's full name, date of birth or age, and home address.

3. The names of the parents or legal guardians serving as the primary instructors. This is typically one or both parents' full names and the home address if different from the pupils' address.

That is the complete list. The statute requires nothing else.

What the Letter Must NOT Include

This is where many Kentucky families create problems for themselves by over-disclosing.

Do not include any of the following:

• Immunization records or medical documentation
• Birth certificates
• A curriculum plan, scope and sequence, or list of textbooks
• Lesson schedules or daily timetables
• Standardized test scores or academic assessments
• A request for district approval or permission

Including extra documentation does not help you comply — it only gives the district more to scrutinize. Some districts, when presented with a curriculum plan, begin to treat your notification as a curriculum submission that requires their review and "approval." This misrepresents the law. Kentucky school districts have no authority to approve or deny a private homeschool's curriculum under the Rudasill decision (589 S.W.2d 877, Ky. 1979). Providing that information voluntarily invites scrutiny you are not legally required to accept.

If a district official contacts you and requests any of the above documents as a condition of processing your notice, you can politely but firmly decline and cite KRS 159.030 and the Rudasill ruling.

A Compliant Letter Template

The following structure satisfies KRS 159.160 requirements:

[Date]

[Superintendent's Name] Superintendent, [School District Name] [District Mailing Address]

Dear Superintendent [Last Name],

Please accept this correspondence as formal notification pursuant to KRS 159.030 and KRS 159.160 that the following children are enrolled in a bona fide private school, [Your Homeschool Name], for the [Year-Year] academic term.

Enrolled pupils:

• [Child's Full Name], age [X], residing at [Address]

Parent/guardian instructors:

• [Parent Full Name], residing at [Address]

This letter constitutes notification of enrollment as required by KRS 159.160. No approval or response is required.

Sincerely, [Your Signature] [Your Printed Name] [Your Phone Number or Email — optional]

Keep the tone formal and direct. Do not apologize for homeschooling, explain your reasons for withdrawing, or ask the district to confirm receipt of your curriculum. You are providing statutory notice, not making a case to the district.

Who Receives the Letter: Superintendent, Not Principal

This is the most consequential operational detail in the entire process, and it is the most commonly misunderstood.

KRS 159.160 requires notification to the local board of education — functionally, the superintendent of the school district. It does not require notification to the school principal, the attendance office, or the building secretary. If you send your certified letter only to the principal, you have not met the legal requirement.

Every Kentucky school district has a superintendent. Their name and mailing address are listed on the district's official website. The address is typically the district's central administrative office, not the local school building.

However, there is a practical problem: even after you send a legally compliant notice to the superintendent, the local school building often does not receive updated enrollment information for days or even weeks. During that gap, automated truancy systems at the school may continue generating unexcused absence notices for your child.

The solution is a dual-notification approach: send the formal KRS 159.160-compliant notice to the superintendent via certified mail, and simultaneously send a brief, courteous note to the school's principal or attendance secretary letting them know your child has been withdrawn and enrolled in a private homeschool. The second letter is not a legal requirement — it is a practical step to prevent the building-level administrative system from triggering truancy alerts while your certified letter works its way through district channels.

How to Send the Letter

Send the notice to the superintendent by certified mail with return receipt requested. This gives you a physical, date-stamped record that the letter was delivered — your proof of compliance in the event that the district later claims it never received notification.

Keep the certified mail receipt and the return receipt card together with a copy of the letter in a dedicated homeschool compliance folder.

Do not rely on email alone. Email is not certified mail, and many districts do not have a formal process for accepting statutory notices by email. If you send an email and something goes wrong, you may not have the documentation you need to defend yourself.

Timing: When Must the Letter Be Sent?

• Start of the school year: The notice must be submitted within the first two weeks (14 calendar days) of the local district's fall term.
• Mid-year withdrawal: The notice must be submitted within ten days of the student's last day of attendance at the public school.

If you miss these windows, your child accumulates unexcused absences. Under Kentucky law, three unexcused absences constitute truancy, and the Director of Pupil Personnel (DPP) is required to investigate. This is why the ten-day mid-year clock is critical — the moment your child stops attending public school, the clock starts.

Annual Renewal

Many Kentucky parents are surprised to learn that the notice is an annual requirement. You must re-notify the superintendent at the start of each new school year that your private homeschool is still in operation and your children are still enrolled. The process is identical each year: send the same letter, updated with current ages and grades, within the first two weeks of the district's fall term.

After You Send the Letter

Once your notice is on file, Kentucky law requires you to maintain two ongoing records:

• Attendance log: Daily records showing your school was in session and your child was present. The minimum is 170 days and 1,062 hours per year.
• Scholarship reports: Quarterly progress reports (report cards) covering the required subjects: reading, writing, spelling, grammar, history, mathematics, science, and civics.

The Director of Pupil Personnel can request to inspect these records. They cannot request to review your curriculum, observe your teaching, or enter your home without consent.

Getting the Templates Right

Writing this letter correctly the first time matters. The Kentucky Legal Withdrawal Blueprint includes a completed, fill-in-the-blank notice of intent template formatted for Kentucky's statutory requirements, a second courtesy-withdrawal template for the school principal, and a certified mail tracking worksheet. It also covers the KEES scholarship implications for high schoolers and the driver's license compliance process for teenagers — the two areas that generic withdrawal letter templates completely ignore.

If you are withdrawing mid-year or handling a complicated situation (IEP, truancy history, or a district that is pushing back), the blueprint's step-by-step compliance protocol is built for exactly those scenarios.

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