Homeschooling in Florida: Records, Requirements & Funding (2026)

If you’re in Florida and eyeing that “annual evaluation” line for the first time, your stomach probably drops a little. It sounds like an exam your child could fail, or a bureaucratic hoop you’ll fumble, and you’re already busy enough.

Here’s the calmer truth. Florida is one of the more workable states for home educators, the evaluation gives you several ways to satisfy it, and almost all the pressure comes off once you keep the right records as you go. Here’s what Florida generally asks for in 2026, and how to keep the file ready without letting it run your year.

This is general information, not legal advice. Homeschool laws change, and details vary by district. Verify current requirements with the Florida Department of Education, your county school district, or a local homeschool organization before you rely on anything here.

Is homeschooling legal in Florida? How you start

Yes. Florida has long recognized home education, generally under Florida Statute §1002.41. Compulsory school age in Florida is generally 6 to 16, and a home education program is one of the recognized ways to meet it.

To start the program (the “Home Education” route, as opposed to a private-school umbrella or the PEP scholarship path, both below), you generally file a notice of intent with your county district school superintendent’s office. As of 2026, that notice is typically due within 30 days of establishing the program, and generally includes the names, addresses, and birthdates of each child, signed by the parent.

That’s the front door. It’s a letter, not an application you can be rejected from. Florida doesn’t require a teaching certificate or anyone’s approval to begin. (Confirm the current form and timeline with your own county.)

What Florida asks of you

Florida’s home education law is lighter than many states on the inputs and more specific on the records. As of 2026, the general shape looks like this:

Notice of intent, filed with your county superintendent, generally within 30 days of starting, and a notice of termination filed when you stop (typically also within 30 days).
Required subjects. Florida’s home education statute does not mandate a specific subject list the way some states do. You direct the curriculum.
Days or hours. The home education route generally does not set a fixed number of instruction days or hours. (This is one reason many families find Florida flexible.)
A portfolio. You maintain a portfolio of records and materials as you go (details below).
An annual evaluation. Once a year, documenting your child’s educational progress, filed with the superintendent (options below).

Notice what’s not there: no state-set hour count, no mandated subject roster. Florida trusts you to teach and asks you to keep evidence, and that trade is exactly where a good records habit earns its keep.

What records to keep in Florida

This is the heart of it. Florida’s portfolio requirement, as generally described under §1002.41, has two parts:

A log of educational activities, made contemporaneously with the instruction, meaning you keep it as you go, not reconstructed in a panic the week before your evaluation. The log generally includes the titles of any reading materials used.
Samples of the child’s work: writings, worksheets, workbooks, and creative materials your child produced during the year.

A couple of details worth burning into memory:

The portfolio generally must be preserved for two years.
The superintendent (or their agent) may request to inspect it, typically with 15 days’ written notice. So it needs to be findable, not scattered across a hard drive, a folder, and the bottom of a backpack.

The word contemporaneously is the one that trips people up. A portfolio built from a full year of captured work is a curation job. One built from memory in April is a nightmare. The whole game is capturing the everyday work once, in the moment, so it’s already there when you need it. (There’s a calmer way to think about this in It’s the Record-Keeping, Isn’t It?.)

The annual evaluation: your five options

Here’s the part that scares people and shouldn’t. Florida doesn’t dictate one evaluation method. As of 2026, the statute generally gives parents a choice among several, and you pick:

A Florida-certified teacher reviews the portfolio and discusses progress with your child.
A nationally normed standardized achievement test, administered by a certified teacher.
A state student assessment test used by the district, administered by a certified teacher.
Evaluation by a licensed psychologist (holding the appropriate Florida license).
Any other valid measurement tool mutually agreed upon by you and your district superintendent.

You then file the result with your county superintendent’s office by your program’s annual date. Most families choose option 1, a certified teacher’s portfolio review, because it’s low-stress and turns your year of saved work into the evidence. The standard the law generally uses is progress “commensurate with the student’s ability,” not a pass/fail cutoff.

One thing I want to be flat about: Kithle is not an evaluator and does not replace one. If Florida requires a certified teacher or licensed psychologist to sign off, you still need that person. What good records do is hand them an organized portfolio instead of a shoebox.

Funding for Florida homeschoolers

Florida is genuinely one of the better states here. The Personalized Education Program (PEP), administered through Step Up For Students, is a scholarship built specifically for home educators. It’s a flexible education savings account families can use for curriculum, materials, tutoring, approved online programs, and more, often through a marketplace like MyScholarShop.

In recent cycles the PEP award has been reported around $8,000 per student per year on average, though the exact amount, the number of funded seats, and the application windows change every year with the state budget. Treat any figure (including that one) as “check the current number,” and apply early. Priority windows have historically closed in spring.

One important wrinkle: PEP is a different track than the standard Home Education program. As of 2026, PEP families generally do not file a county notice of intent and do not submit the county portfolio/evaluation. They’re accountable to their Scholarship Funding Organization instead, with its own reporting rules. So the records you keep depend on which path you’re on. Don’t assume the two overlap. Verify the requirements for your program.

For the bigger picture on how families actually use these funds, see our plain-English guide to ESAs and homeschool funding. And because amounts and rules shift yearly and vary by state, always confirm current details with the program before counting on a dollar figure.

How Kithle helps Florida families

Kithle is a curriculum-neutral record-keeping and student-development tool. Track the worksheets Kithle generates, or bring your own curriculum and just use the reporting side. For a Florida family, it’s built around the exact records the state tends to ask for:

A contemporaneous activity log you build as you teach, the “kept as you go” habit the portfolio requires, instead of an April reconstruction.
Work-sample and reading-log storage, so writings, worksheets, and reading titles are captured once and filed in one place.
Assessment and evaluation tracking, a home for your annual evaluation result and dates, ready for your county filing.
Evaluator-ready output. When your certified teacher sits down to review, they get an organized portfolio, not a scramble.

What Kithle does not do is declare you “compliant.” No tool can, and I’d distrust one that claimed to. It organizes the records you keep, around what Florida asks for, so you can meet the requirement yourself. You stay in control. The software just keeps things from slipping through the cracks. That’s the whole idea in how Kithle works.

FAQ

Does Florida require a certified evaluator? For the standard home education program, your annual evaluation generally must be done by someone qualified under one of the statute’s options, most commonly a Florida-certified teacher or a licensed psychologist, if you choose the review or psychologist route. The testing options are given by a certified teacher. Kithle isn’t that evaluator. It prepares the portfolio you hand them.

Do I have to teach specific subjects or a set number of hours? As of 2026, Florida’s home education statute generally doesn’t mandate a fixed subject list or a set number of days/hours the way some states do. You direct the curriculum. (Verify current rules with your district, and note PEP has its own requirements.)

Is PEP the same as filing a notice of intent? No. PEP (through Step Up For Students) is a separate scholarship track with its own reporting, handled through your Scholarship Funding Organization rather than a county notice of intent and portfolio. Confirm which rules apply to your family.

Can Kithle make my Florida homeschool compliant? No. Kithle organizes the records Florida asks for and keeps them evaluator-ready, but whether you meet the legal bar is a determination you make, verified with your state and your evaluator. We feed the process. We don’t rule on it.

The honest bottom line

Florida asks for a notice, a portfolio kept as you go, and one annual evaluation you get to choose the shape of. Handled a little at a time, none of it is heavy. The pressure only builds when the records get postponed to spring. For the calm starter version, see our first-year guide, and what records your state requires shows how Florida compares to everywhere else.

Kithle is opening early access at kithle.com, built to organize the records Florida asks for, and keep them ready while you get on with the teaching.