Ohio's homeschooling population climbed to roughly 60,000 students during the 2024-2025 school year, up from about 53,000 the year before, even as the state stripped away nearly every requirement it once used to track how those children are being taught. Families no longer have to prove a minimum number of instructional hours, submit assessment tests, or show that the person teaching their kids has a high school diploma.
The shift traces back to Ohio House Bill 33, which lawmakers folded into the state budget bill in 2023 and which codified homeschooling into statutory law under Ohio Revised Code Section 3321.042, according to Ohio law. As reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer, reporters Grace Tucker and Laura A. Bischoff found that Ohio has removed most of the guardrails that used to surround home education, giving families wide latitude with little enforceable state oversight.
What Parents No Longer Have to Prove
Before the overhaul, Ohio required homeschooling parents to submit academic progress reports and assessment tests each year to demonstrate their children were learning. Both requirements are now gone, per the Enquirer's reporting. The instructional-hours mandate and the requirement that instructors hold a high school diploma were eliminated as well, leaving parents largely free to design and run their own curriculum without demonstrating results to anyone.
What remains is mostly procedural. Under the statute, parents must send a simplified annual notice to their resident school district superintendent by August 30, or within five calendar days of starting home education. The Compass Academy notes that superintendents must acknowledge receipt of that notice within 14 calendar days, and that acknowledgment functions as formal proof of exemption from compulsory attendance rather than a discretionary approval districts can withhold. Students who stop home education without re-enrolling remain subject to truancy enforcement.
Fewer Subjects, More Tax Relief
The required curriculum has also narrowed. Where administrative rules once demanded instruction in nine subjects, including health, physical education, fine arts, and safety, the statute now requires just six core areas: English language arts, mathematics, science, history, government, and social studies, according to Ideal School.
Financial incentives have grown alongside the deregulation. Starting in tax year 2025, Ohio expanded its nonrefundable Home School Expenses Tax Credit under Ohio Revised Code Section 5747.72 so the $250 credit applies per qualifying student rather than being capped at $250 per tax return, according to the Ohio Department of Taxation. The credit can be applied toward books, subscriptions, and educational software, though it excludes hardware such as computers or printers.
Homeschooled students also retain access to public school life in ways some families may not expect. Ohio Revised Code Section 3313.5312 guarantees homeschooled children the right to participate in public school sports and extracurricular activities offered by their resident district, and local districts are barred from imposing extra eligibility requirements on homeschooled participants that don't apply to enrolled students, per the Ohio High School Athletic Association. Families educating children with special needs at home can also remain eligible for state-funded programs like the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship and Autism Scholarship, which can be applied toward accredited therapies and tutoring even while a child's core curriculum is directed at home.
A National Trend, With Local Debate
Ohio's growth mirrors a national pattern. Survey data from EdChoice indicates homeschooling roughly doubled across the U.S., from about 3% of K-12 students before the pandemic to about 6% by 2026, with a demographic profile that has shifted well beyond the movement's historically white, religious, rural base. Fifteen percent of homeschooling households nationally are now Hispanic, 10% are Black, and 5% are Asian, EdChoice found.
Not everyone views the deregulation as a clear win. The Coalition for Responsible Home Education has warned that eliminating standardized testing and portfolio reviews removes critical touchpoints for identifying learning deficits or severe child isolation, arguing that mandatory assessments help ensure accountability and protect vulnerable children, according to research summarized on ResearchGate. The tension the group describes sits at the center of Ohio's current approach: fewer barriers for families who want to teach their own children, but also fewer ways for the state to know how those children are actually doing.
Parents weighing home education in Ohio still have another state-backed option that comes with more built-in oversight. Statewide public e-schools like OHDELA served more than 30,000 students through tuition-free online learning, according to OHDELA, and unlike parent-directed homeschooling, those programs remain subject to state academic testing and public oversight because they employ state-funded public school teachers. The distinction matters for families sorting through Ohio's expanding menu of alternatives to a traditional classroom, a menu that also includes recent legislative efforts like a bill shielding parents over kids' solo outings, aimed at giving parents more room to make independent calls about how their children spend their time.
