Homeschool requirements · Mississippi
Homeschooling in Mississippi
Light paperwork · A notice or an enrollment form, then keep your own records.
File a certificate of enrollment with the county school attendance officer by August 15 each year.
What Mississippi asks
| Notice | Annual certificate of enrollment to the local school attendance officer by August 15 (moved up from September 15 in 2026). |
|---|---|
| Days and hours | Mississippi sets no number. HomeSchool Scribe plans against 180 days unless you change it. |
| Subjects | Not specified |
| Assessment | None required. |
| Records to keep | None required; keep your own. |
| Parent qualification | None. |
| Worth knowing | 180 days is a planning default only. |
Deadlines
These are the dates the app tracks for Mississippi. Districts vary; the app lets you edit any of them.
| What | When | To whom | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Certificate of Enrollment Notice · email | By August 15 each year | Local school attendance officer for the county where the child lives | One certificate per child, every year, for each child who is six on or before September 1 and has not turned seventeen by that date; a five-year-old already enrolled in a full-day public kindergarten counts as well. August 15 is the current deadline. Senate Bill 2103 of the 2026 regular session amended Section 37-13-91 effective July 1, 2026 and moved the date up from September 15, so older printouts and some district staff may still say September; Scribe plans against August 15. The form asks for the school year and county, the child's name, date of birth, address and phone, the parent's name and mailing address, the public school district, which type of program it is, and a short description of the home instruction; a typed signature is accepted. Download it from the department's home school page, then hand or mail it to the school attendance officer for your county, or email it to homeschool@mdek12.org. Mississippi also asks families to wait until the current school year has ended before enrolling a child for the coming year. If the child was enrolled in public school during the first fifteen days of the school year, the law lets a family move to home instruction later and send the certificate then. Keep your signed copy; if the attendance officer sends written notice that a certificate is missing, the law allows ten days to send it. |
| Your own records: portfolio, reading log, attendance Records · Keep in your files | By the end of the school year | Keep in your files | Beyond the certificate, Mississippi sets no subjects, no days or hours, no testing and no records a family has to keep. The department does recommend a portfolio for each child, holding samples of activities, assignments, projects and assessments, a log of books and materials used, and the results of any national test, and it points families to the Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards as a guide. Scribe's portfolio, reading log and attendance report cover that. Nothing here has a deadline, the state names no retention period so Scribe keeps three years by default, and the 180 days Scribe plans against is only a default you can change. |
What HomeSchool Scribe does in Mississippi
- Certificate of Enrollment: Prepares the notice letter; reminds you 14 days and 2 days before.
- Your own records: portfolio, reading log, attendance: Prepares the portfolio, the reading log and the attendance and hours report; keeps it in records.
Attendance and hours fill in from the lessons you check off, so the documents above come from records you already have.
Read the law yourself
Mississippi Department of Education · HSLDA’s Mississippi summary
Not legal advicePlanning summaries in plain language, reviewed 2026-09-29. Deadlines and recipients vary by district; confirm with Mississippi’s current law or a homeschool legal organization before you file anything. If something here is out of date, tell us and we’ll fix it for every family in Mississippi.