Wyoming Homeschool Curriculum Submission: Do You Still Have to File?

Parents pulling their children out of Wyoming public schools frequently run into the same wall: conflicting information about whether they need to hand their curriculum to the district. Some sources say yes, every year. Others say the requirement is gone. Both camps cite Wyoming law. The confusion is understandable — the law changed on July 1, 2025, and a large portion of what's published online was written before that date.

Here is the straightforward answer: for most Wyoming homeschooling families, curriculum submission to the local board of trustees is no longer required. But the exceptions matter, and misreading them can cost your child their sports eligibility or their access to special education services.

The Old Requirement and Why It's Now Gone

Before July 2025, W.S. § 21-4-102(b) required parents administering a home-based educational program to submit a curriculum to the local board of trustees each year. The statute tied a sharp enforcement mechanism to this: if you failed to submit, that failure served as prima facie evidence your program did not meet compulsory attendance requirements. That meant missing a submission deadline wasn't a minor oversight — it was the legal equivalent of not educating your child.

House Bill 46, the Homeschool Freedom Act, struck both provisions. The submission mandate is gone. The prima facie non-compliance trigger is gone. In their place, the law now states that it is the responsibility of the person administering the program to "ensure a curriculum is administered to pupils in the program that complies with the requirements" of the seven-subject mandate. The obligation to teach hasn't changed. The obligation to report it to the district — for most families — has.

Who Still Has to Submit Curriculum

Three categories of Wyoming homeschooling families continue to have ongoing curriculum documentation obligations with their local district.

Families accessing public school sports and extracurriculars. Wyoming's Equal Opportunity Act (W.S. § 21-4-506) gives homeschooled students the right to participate in interscholastic athletics and other public school activities, provided they meet the same eligibility rules as enrolled students. Those rules include demonstrating academic standing. Districts can — and do — require curriculum submission as part of verifying that a homeschooled athlete meets academic eligibility standards. If your child plays on a public school team or participates in the school's theater program, band, or any WHSAA-sanctioned activity, maintain current curriculum documentation and coordinate with the activities director before each season.

Families whose children hold an IEP or 504 plan and wish to continue receiving district-provided services. Withdrawing from public school does not automatically terminate special education entitlements for all services, but continuing to access district-provided therapies and resource support means remaining inside the district's compliance structure. Districts can require curriculum documentation as part of that service arrangement. If you want the public school to keep providing your child's speech therapy or occupational therapy after withdrawal, you will need to keep supplying curriculum records.

Students enrolled in public school virtual programs who have been misclassified as homeschoolers. This is less a submission issue and more a classification issue, but it is worth naming. Programs like Virtual 307 and Wyoming Virtual Preparatory Academy (VPREP) are public school programs delivered digitally. Students enrolled in these are legally public school students and subject to all standard public school requirements, including annual testing. If you are enrolled in one of these programs thinking it is independent homeschooling, you are in an entirely different legal category.

What "Sequentially Progressive" Means for Your Submission

If you are in one of the categories above and do submit curriculum documentation, the standard your program must meet is the "basic academic educational program" as defined in W.S. § 21-4-101(a)(vi). This means a sequentially progressive curriculum of fundamental instruction in seven subjects: reading, writing, mathematics, civics, history, literature, and science.

"Sequentially progressive" does not mean you need to follow a public school scope and sequence or align to Wyoming Content and Performance Standards. There is no statutory requirement to do either. The phrase means that education must advance — your child should be building on prior knowledge and moving forward over time. A child working through the same exact phonics program at the same level for three consecutive years would not meet this standard. A child progressing through increasingly complex reading, writing, and math materials year over year clearly does, regardless of what curriculum brand or approach the family uses.

The board has no authority to approve or reject your curriculum. Their role, when they receive a submission, is acknowledgment — confirming that a basic educational program exists, which satisfies the district's compulsory attendance oversight obligation. Administrators who attempt to evaluate whether your curriculum meets state standards, demand you use approved vendors, or require testing are acting outside their statutory authority.

If you are in the process of withdrawing from a Wyoming public school and need to understand exactly what to bring to the mandatory in-person meeting, what to hand over and what to decline, and how to handle a district that is still demanding curriculum submissions under the old rules, the Wyoming Legal Withdrawal Blueprint covers every step.

Practical Documentation if You Do Submit

For families who submit voluntarily or because of the sports/special education exceptions, a functional curriculum submission does not need to be elaborate. You do not need polished lesson plans in binders. The document needs to show:

• Coverage of all seven required subjects
• Evidence of sequential progression (a brief scope and sequence, or a list of the curriculum materials being used at each grade level, accomplishes this)
• No alignment with Wyoming Content and Performance Standards is required

Many families use a simple one-page document listing the subjects and the curriculum resources they are using (for example: "Mathematics — Saxon Math 7/6; Reading/Literature — Sonlight Core D; Science — Apologia General Science"). That level of documentation satisfies the acknowledgment function the board is legally permitted to perform.

What Happens if a District Still Demands Submission Under the New Law

Some districts, particularly in the months immediately after HB 46 took effect, were still sending out annual curriculum submission notices as if the old law remained in place. If you receive such a notice and none of the exceptions above apply to your family, you are not legally required to comply.

The appropriate response is to politely decline in writing, reference the amended W.S. § 21-4-102(b) and HB 46, and keep a copy of your communication. If the district escalates — issues a truancy notice, threatens to refer the matter to the county attorney — that is a situation where consulting HSLDA or a Wyoming education attorney becomes warranted. The law changed; the burden is on districts to update their procedures, but not every district has done so promptly.

The Wyoming Freedom Caucus publicly documented cases of districts continuing to demand curriculum submissions after the law changed, so this is not a hypothetical concern. Going into any interaction with a district administrator knowing exactly what the current statute says is your best protection.

The Wyoming Legal Withdrawal Blueprint includes the specific statutory language from HB 46 formatted for use in written responses to district requests, along with a step-by-step guide to the mandatory in-person withdrawal meeting that the new law did not change.

See more United States homeschool guides →