Parents currently don’t need the state’s permission, and the state doesn’t mandate annual reviews for homeschooled students. That freedom makes it appealing for many parents. About 1,800 students left public school for homeschooling in Connecticut in the last fiscal year.
Roughly 3% of the state’s nearly 500,000 K-12 students are homeschooled, according to a 2025 Johns Hopkins analysis. Nationwide, homeschool students perform at least as well as, and often better than, public-school peers on tests.
Yet the state House passed a bill last week that would mandate parents notify the state if they want to homeschool. The bill makes all parents declare their children’s enrollment status annually. But starting in the 2027-28 school year, parents withdrawing a child to homeschool would have to appear in person at the local school district office to sign a form.
The bill would also subject those parents to an inspection by the state’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) that can take up to seven days. If a parent is on the state’s child abuse and neglect registry or otherwise caught up in a case with the DCF, even an unresolved one, the family would be forbidden from homeschooling.
Anyone who’s had experience with government bureaucracy knows how this can go. Inspectors who have a bias against homeschooling can easily find a reason to bar such instruction. Using an open case—which could be unresolved for a variety of reasons—as a criterion looks like a violation of due process.