Withdrawing from Private School to Homeschool in Pennsylvania

Parents withdrawing from a private school often assume the process is simpler than leaving a public school — less bureaucracy, no truancy department, friendlier administration. In some ways that is true. In one important way, the legal obligations are identical.

Pennsylvania's Home Education Program statute (24 PA C.S. §13-1327.1) applies to all children of compulsory school age, regardless of where they were previously enrolled. Leaving a private school to homeschool requires the same notarized affidavit filed with the superintendent of your school district of residence. The private school itself has no role in that legal process.

Where private school withdrawal gets complicated is on a second front: the private school's own enrollment contract, its withdrawal policies, and the question of whether you are owed any tuition back.

The Legal Homeschool Filing: Same As Public School

When you withdraw from a private school to homeschool, your legal obligation under state law is to the school district where you live — not to the private school. The superintendent of that district needs to receive your affidavit before your home education program begins.

The affidavit includes the same required elements regardless of where your child was previously enrolled:

• Your name as supervisor, your child's name and age, your address and phone
• An assurance of English-language instruction
• An outline of proposed educational objectives by subject
• Evidence of current immunizations (or a valid exemption)
• Evidence of required health and dental examinations
• Criminal background certification for adults in the home

Your child's previous private school does not need to approve your homeschooling, sign off on your paperwork, or send any documentation to the district. You notify the state (via the superintendent) by filing the affidavit. You notify the private school separately according to whatever their withdrawal policy requires.

Do not conflate these two processes. The affidavit to the superintendent is the legal requirement. The notification to the private school is a contractual one.

The Tuition Refund Question

This is where private school withdrawal gets materially different — and where families stand to lose significant money if they do not read their enrollment contract carefully before withdrawing.

Pennsylvania regulations under 22 Pa. Code §51.83 provide some baseline protections for tuition refunds at private academic schools. If you withdraw within 30 days of the start of the academic term, the school must refund at least 75% of tuition. After 30 days, the refund obligation depends on the school's own written policy, which must be disclosed at enrollment.

What this means in practice:

If you are withdrawing within the first 30 days of a term, you have a statutory floor: 75% back. The school can have a more generous policy but cannot fall below that.

If you are withdrawing after 30 days, the contract governs. Many private school contracts specify no refund after a certain date, or a prorated refund schedule. Some contracts — particularly those for religiously affiliated schools — include explicit clauses that a full year's tuition is committed upon enrollment regardless of when the family leaves.

Before you notify the private school of your withdrawal, pull out the enrollment contract and re-read the tuition refund section. Look for:

• The refund schedule by date of withdrawal
• Whether enrollment fees (separate from tuition) are refundable
• Whether any portion of the contract was for the full year regardless of attendance
• Whether there is a required notice period (some schools require 30-day written notice to process any refund)

If the contract is unclear or you believe the school is applying a policy that was not disclosed at enrollment, that is a civil dispute between you and the school — not something the superintendent or the state homeschooling process is involved in.

Withdrawing Mid-Year From Private School

Mid-year private school withdrawals are common and legally straightforward on the state homeschool side. File the affidavit with the superintendent before or simultaneously with your withdrawal from the private school. Do not let absences accumulate before the affidavit is on file — three unexcused days triggers truancy risk.

On the tuition side, mid-year departures are where parents most often encounter the "no refund after [date]" clauses. If you are mid-year and the contract says tuition is fully committed, you may not recover what you have paid. That is a financial reality to factor in before deciding when to withdraw.

Some families in this position choose to keep their child enrolled on paper through the end of a term while beginning the home education program, to avoid forfeiting a large tuition payment. This approach is legally permissible only if you are not filing your affidavit and beginning a separate home education program simultaneously — you cannot be enrolled full-time at a private school and simultaneously operating a home education program under §13-1327.1 for the same child in the same period. The two programs overlap in a way that creates legal ambiguity. Most attorneys advise a clean break.

What the Private School Will Want From You

Most private schools have their own internal withdrawal procedures — a form to complete, a final billing statement, a request for your child's records. None of this is governed by state homeschooling law, but you will want to handle it properly to receive any records and references you may need.

Request the following from the private school in writing when you withdraw:

• Transcripts and academic records
• Immunization records (so you have the originals, not just a copy on file somewhere)
• Any IEP or 504 documentation if applicable
• Standardized test results from prior years

Private schools are generally required to provide student records upon request. Under federal law (and state regulations that mirror FERPA principles for private schools receiving any federal funds), parents have the right to access and obtain copies of their child's educational records.

Your homeschooling evaluator will likely want to see prior academic records to establish a starting point and frame the year-end portfolio review appropriately.

The Evaluator at Year-End Still Applies

Regardless of whether your child came from public or private school, the year-end evaluation requirement under §13-1327.1 applies once you are operating a home education program. By June 30 of each school year, a qualified evaluator — a Pennsylvania-certified teacher with at least two years of grading experience, a licensed psychologist, or a qualifying non-public school administrator — must review your child's portfolio and submit a certification letter to the superintendent.

Under Act 196 of 2014, the superintendent receives only that letter. The portfolio remains with you. The district does not conduct its own review of your child's work.

Families who are withdrawing from private school tend to have slightly more structured portfolios to begin with, because they are accustomed to grades and documentation. That head start is useful. The evaluator is looking for evidence of "sustained progress" across required subjects — not perfection, not grade-level benchmarks as defined by the private school's own standards.

If you want to see how all of this fits together — the affidavit filing, the certified mail process, the objectives, the portfolio, and the year-end evaluation — the Pennsylvania Legal Withdrawal Blueprint covers every stage of the process, including templates specifically designed for Pennsylvania's requirements.

The Short Version

Leaving a Pennsylvania private school to homeschool has two separate tracks: the state homeschooling track (file an affidavit with your school district superintendent) and the private school contract track (check your refund policy and submit withdrawal per the school's procedures). Both need to happen, but they are independent of each other.

Get the affidavit to the superintendent first. That is the legal foundation everything else rests on.

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