Homeschool Requirements in Wisconsin

Wisconsin asks very little of you. You did not bring your children home for the sake of a form. Here is the form anyway. Begin with the first heading: what you send in, if anything, and the day it is due. There is not much after that. Every claim is cited at the foot, so you can hold it against the code rather than take our word for it.

What you send in, and when it is due

File Form PI-1206 (Homeschool Report) with the Department of Public Instruction annually, on or before October 15. Section I reports the number of students enrolled in the home-based program on the third Friday in September; Section II is the parent’s affirmation that the program meets the statutory criteria. Filing is online through DPI. No child names, curriculum, or evidence is submitted, there is no approval step, and DPI keeps the filing for seven years. Keep your own copy. DPI does not routinely issue confirmations that districts will accept.

Days and hours

At least 875 hours of instruction per school year (Wis. Stat. § 118.165(1)(c)). Hours, not days, the family defines the schedule and the school year. There is no statutory authority for any district or agency to audit or verify the hours.

A free one-page worksheet for turning hours into credits, with every rule it leans on quoted on the sheet: Counting a Credit.

Subjects the law names

A “sequentially progressive curriculum of fundamental instruction” in six areas: reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, and health (Wis. Stat. § 118.165(1)(d)). A program providing religious-based education need not include any curriculum in conflict with its religious doctrines. The statute does not prescribe scope, sequence, texts or grade-level standards.

The law names the subjects. It does not name the course titles a registrar will read, and Bible is where that gap costs families most. Booking Bible as a real subject on a transcript.

What you keep

No records are required to be submitted or maintained by statute, and DPI states the statutes give no agency express authority to monitor a home-based program or verify hours or curriculum. DPI nonetheless recommends parents keep records of instruction, since employers, the military and postsecondary institutions commonly request them. Keep hour logs, curriculum plans, grades and work samples for the high school years in particular.

Testing and evaluation

None. No standardized testing, evaluation, portfolio review or progress reporting is required, and no results are ever reported to the state.

The diploma and the transcript

DPI states plainly that “parents administering a homeschool program may create a diploma upon completion of their program.” There is no state homeschool diploma, no state credit definition, no minimum credit count, and no state transcript. Wis. Stat. § 118.165(1) is the sole graduation standard, which means the 875 hours/six subjects applies through the high school years too. Equal-access rights are unusually strong: Wis. Stat. § 118.133 guarantees homeschooled resident students the right to participate in interscholastic athletics on the same basis as enrolled students; Wis. Stat. § 118.53 allows homeschooled students to take up to two courses per semester in a public school; and homeschooled students may participate in Early College Credit / Start College Now. Wisconsin has no homeschool ESA; the state’s parental choice programs require enrollment in a participating private school, and accepting a choice-program seat ends home-based status.

Where the law names religion

Wisconsin names six subject areas at Wis. Stat. § 118.165(1)(d) and then provides that a program giving religious-based education need not include any curriculum in conflict with its religious doctrines. The hours and the yearly PI-1206 report still stand. The content is yours, and the statute sets no scope, sequence, texts or grade-level standards over it.

Where this comes from

Statute: Wis. Stat. §§ 115.001(3g) (definition of home-based private educational program), 115.30(3) (annual PI-1206 report), 118.15(1)(a) & (4) (compulsory attendance exemption), 118.165(1) (875 hours; six subjects); see also §§ 118.133, 118.53

Source: https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/118

Last reviewed: July 2026. The day is not recorded.

Homeschool law changes, and a page like this goes quietly out of date. Before a filing deadline, read the code above yourself. If we have fallen behind we would much rather hear it from you than have you find out at a district office.

All fifty states and the District of Columbia, each one citing the law it came from.

Filing is one part of it. Keeping the record is the other, and that is what our Records System is for: the editable transcript with the GPA already working, 131 academic course descriptions, the Bible and theology descriptions, and this same cited summary for every state and DC. Protestant and Catholic editions. Thirty-nine dollars, one household, however many children you teach.