Louisiana Homeschool Curriculum Choices: What the State Actually Requires

Louisiana gives homeschooling parents more curriculum freedom than most people realize — and far more than the LDOE's language suggests. The state's legal standard sounds intimidating: your curriculum must be "of a quality at least equal to that offered by the public schools." In practice, the LDOE does not maintain an approved list of programs, does not conduct prior reviews of your materials, and does not require you to follow the Louisiana Student Standards.

What this means is that the curriculum decision is entirely yours. The state evaluates the output — evidence of learning — not the input. Understanding that distinction changes how you approach the entire question of curriculum selection.

The BESE Standard in Plain Language

Under Louisiana Revised Statutes R.S. 17:236.1, families in the BESE-Approved Home Study Program must submit annual renewal evidence demonstrating that their program has offered a "sustained curriculum of quality at least equal to that offered by public schools at the same grade level." This is evaluated once a year through your renewal submission, not through ongoing monitoring or inspections.

The LDOE accepts three forms of evidence for renewal:

1. A curriculum packet — a list of subjects taught, the textbooks or materials used, and one to two pages of completed student work per core subject (Math, English Language Arts, Social Studies, Science). The sample work simply needs to demonstrate the student is progressing.

2. Standardized test scores — verification that the child scored at or above grade level, or demonstrated a year's worth of progression, on an acceptable exam. Approved tests include the ACT, SAT, Stanford Achievement Test, Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS), and California Achievement Test (CAT). A qualifying score bypasses any subjective review of curriculum materials entirely.

3. A teacher statement — a written statement from a Louisiana-certified teacher confirming they have reviewed the program and believe the child is receiving a curriculum of quality at least equal to public schools.

The curriculum packet option is the most common for families in their first year, because it does not require any external testing or paying for an evaluator. The standardized test option is preferred by families who want the most streamlined renewal — a qualifying score is objective and closes the process without subjective review.

None of these options require you to use public school textbooks, align to the Louisiana Student Standards, or submit lesson plans in advance. The state is checking that learning happened, not how it happened.

What This Means for Curriculum Selection

Because the state evaluates evidence rather than materials, your curriculum choice is genuinely unlimited. Families in Louisiana successfully use all of the following approaches:

Structured boxed curricula — Programs like Abeka, BJU Press, Sonlight, or Memoria Press provide daily lesson plans, textbooks, and assessments in pre-packaged form. These work well for families who want clear structure and straightforward documentation. The built-in record-keeping makes the annual renewal straightforward — you have a ready-made curriculum list and completed workbooks to pull samples from.

Online and video-based programs — Programs like Acellus, Time4Learning, and various Christian online academies deliver instruction through video lessons and automatically track progress. These generate digital records that translate easily into a curriculum packet for BESE renewal.

Classical education — The Well-Trained Mind approach, Classical Conversations, or self-assembled classical programs using Great Books, Latin instruction, and the trivium framework all satisfy the BESE standard. The academic rigor of classical curriculum is well above the "equal to public school" threshold.

Charlotte Mason — Nature journals, narration notebooks, and living books collections constitute valid curriculum evidence. A Charlotte Mason portfolio demonstrates sustained academic engagement across subjects — it simply requires slightly more curation to present clearly as a BESE curriculum packet.

Eclectic and customized — Many Louisiana families use different sources for different subjects: Singapore Math for mathematics, a literature-based reading program, a history spine supplemented with library books, and hands-on science. This approach works fine for BESE renewal as long as you maintain a clear record of what you used and can pull student work samples from each core area.

Unschooling and interest-led — This is the most documentation-intensive approach for BESE renewal because work samples look different from traditional academic exercises. Families using this philosophy typically document through journals, project records, reading logs, and observation notes. It satisfies the standard — the LDOE's quality requirement does not mandate conventional instruction — but requires thoughtful curation throughout the year.

The Louisiana Student Standards: Reference, Not Requirement

Louisiana's public schools follow the Louisiana Student Standards, which are the state's version of K–12 academic expectations in each subject area. These standards are publicly available on the LDOE website and cover English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies by grade level.

You are not required to follow them. However, they serve a useful function: they give you a concrete benchmark to reference when you are uncertain whether your curriculum adequately covers a particular grade level. If you are selecting a math program for a 4th grader and want to know what Louisiana public schools cover in 4th-grade math, the standards document tells you. Using them as a reference — without being bound by them — helps families who are choosing curriculum for the first time calibrate their expectations.

For families submitting curriculum packets as their annual BESE renewal evidence, briefly referencing the Louisiana standards in your subject descriptions (e.g., "our math program covers all 4th-grade operations and algebraic thinking standards") signals to LDOE reviewers that the curriculum is substantively appropriate. It is not required language, but it reduces the chance of a follow-up request for clarification.

High School Curriculum Choices and TOPS Eligibility

High school families face an additional layer of complexity because curriculum choices interact with TOPS scholarship eligibility. BESE-Approved Home Study students use alternate eligibility criteria for TOPS — their scholarship level is determined entirely by ACT or SAT composite scores, not by GPA or course completion records. This means the specific curriculum you use in high school does not directly determine TOPS eligibility.

However, the ACT score benchmarks are substantive: TOPS Opportunity requires a 20, Performance requires a 23, Honors requires a 27, and the Excellence tier requires a 31. A curriculum that genuinely challenges the student and develops strong reasoning skills in math and English produces better ACT outcomes. That is the practical case for choosing a rigorous high school curriculum even when TOPS does not directly audit your course titles.

For students pursuing dual enrollment through the TOPS Tech Early Start program — which provides up to $600 per year for 11th and 12th graders to attend community or technical colleges — the ACT benchmark is higher than for standard public school students. Selecting a high school math curriculum that builds toward ACT-level competency, rather than one that simply covers minimum requirements, matters here.

When registering for the ACT, BESE-Approved Home Study students must enter high school code 969999. This flags their scores to the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance (LOSFA) as a home study applicant. Missing this code creates administrative complications that require follow-up with LOSFA.

The Nonpublic School Path: No Curriculum Requirements

Families operating as a Nonpublic School Not Seeking State Approval (the private school pathway under R.S. 17:232) face no curriculum requirements whatsoever from the state. There is no annual review of materials, no test score submission, and no portfolio process. The annual registration asks only for school name, address, parish, leader name, and enrollment count.

This pathway trades curriculum oversight for scholarship access. Students on the nonpublic path are categorically ineligible for TOPS scholarships and cannot participate in public school extracurricular activities. If your children are young and TOPS eligibility is years away, the nonpublic path's minimal reporting requirements are attractive. If high school and scholarship access are on the horizon, the BESE pathway protects options that the nonpublic path permanently closes.

Getting the First Year Right

The most common first-year curriculum mistake is selecting materials that are too comprehensive and then burning out trying to cover everything. Louisiana's 180-day requirement translates to roughly 330 minutes of instruction per day, excluding lunch and breaks. For families coming out of traditional school, that is often less daily structured academic time than expected — which means a packed boxed curriculum designed for 6-hour school days may generate unnecessary stress.

A more sustainable approach: choose a solid core in math and language arts, add a history or science spine, and supplement freely. Keep records throughout the year rather than reconstructing them in September. Your BESE renewal packet needs one to two pages of student work per core subject — that is a very low documentation bar if you have been saving work samples as you go.

For the full sequence of withdrawing from your current school, filing your BESE application correctly, and understanding what the annual renewal process actually looks like in practice, the Louisiana Legal Withdrawal Blueprint walks through each step with the specific forms, deadlines, and documentation standards the LDOE uses to evaluate submissions.

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