Before We Start
First, I am so excited for you and your family to start this journey! I know families start homeschooling for many different reasons, and of course I don’t know your specific reason, but I promise you aren’t alone in your nervousness – I think it’s safe to say we all start out with a lot of nerves. I’ll share some tips and encouragement throughout this post, but just know that I’m over here cheering for you right now!

Resources

HomeschoolLouisiana.org has a great step by step walkthrough of how to start homeschooling, and my list is going to be very similar to theirs, but I will expand and share links to other resources as I type through this – so feel free to reference both!

Legal details for homeschooling – HSLDA.org website (Homeschool Legal Defense Association)

**The above websites will have more current information for to what is legal in Louisiana – what you read below is me breaking it down in conversational language based on my own 6 years of homeschooling experience. If you have specific questions or need legal advice, please reach out to the resources listed above.**

Let’s Break this Down

STEP 1: Learn about homeschooling laws in Louisiana
You can find current homeschooling laws over at LouisianaBelieves.com which is the official website for the Louisiana Department of Education. This is their Home Study page, which I encourage you to read through, but we can summarize it and say that in Louisiana we are allowed to homeschool our families and there are two options for doing so.

The two options to homeschool in Louisiana are listed on the Homeschool Louisiana website here, but what it doesn’t say on there (which I found helpful to know when we started) was that most families choose to register as a Nonpublic School (not seeking state approval) for grades K-10, and then switch to BESE approved Home Study Program for grades 11 & 12 if they are interested in qualifying for TOPS.

Registering as a Nonpublic School (generally Grades K-10) basically just requires you to:
1) Name your homeschool (whatever you want to name it!)
2) Start Kindergarten by the time your student is 5 years old
3) Register your school every year with the current number of students you are teaching

We have been homeschooling for 6 years, but I don’t have a 11th or 12th grader yet, so I don’t have personal experience with the “BESE Approved Home Study Program” option. To ask a homeschool mom who has experience with this I highly recommend joining the Homeschool SWLA Facebook group.

STEP 2: Withdraw your child from their current school
So technically this would be the first “action step” for starting homeschooling if your student is already enrolled in school with the parish. Homeschool Louisiana provides a handy template called “Louisiana Letter of Enrollment” to print out/fill out and send to your child’s school. For all the legal details of removing your child from school (especially if you are removing them in the middle of the school year) check out the HSLDA.org website (Homeschool Legal Defense Association).

If your child has never attended public school then you obviously would not need to withdraw them from any school. You will be required to register them as a student (according to the options listed in STEP 1) when they are 5 years old. When I first started the “starting school age” was age 7, I am hoping this does not go down any lower, but definitely go check so you know when you are legally required to have your kiddos start school since it could change.

STEP 3: Join a homeschool community
There are a few online groups locally, but I am going to recommend the Homeschool Southwest Louisiana (Homeschool SWLA) group since I am on the board and know the families behind it! The Facebook group is great for asking questions and getting recommendations on local events/activities. The Homeschool SWLA group also sets up a few field trips and events a year for homeschool families to gather together.

I also recommend the annual Cultivate: Motherhood + Home Education Conference in Lake Charles which happens in the Summer time.

And Homeschool Louisiana’s annual Louisiana Homeschool Conference (in Hammond, LA) coming up in the Spring.

STEP 4: Choose your homeschool style
Before you get too far in your homeschool research you may hear mention of these different types of homeschooling styles. Some of the most common ones are Classical Education, Charlotte Mason, Montessori, Traditional, Eclectic, Unit Studies, and Unschooling.

The Simply Charlotte Mason website has a great breakdown of each along with a video and assessment you can download and walk through. Obviously, this website promotes the Charlotte Mason style (quite obvious with the name), but I think this is still as good starting place to learn more about the different types and take advantage of the free assessment!

I don’t have hands on experience with all of these, but here are some local resources I would recommend if a certain style stands out to you:

1. Classical Education
   I recommend checking out Prudentia Classical Academy
   
2. Charlotte Mason
   This one is more warm cozy home vibes, and our preferred homeschool style. Some online resources I recommend are Wild + Free and Simply Charlotte Mason. Check out this post I wrote with some recommendation of curriculum we love and use faithfully: Homeschooling Day in the Life
   
3. Montessori
   Check out JOY Lake Charles, which is a local Acton Academy.
   
4. Traditional
   Some curriculum I would recommend for these would be Abeka and BJU Press.
   
5. Eclectic
   (I will get some information about this one for you!)
   
6. Unit Studies
   Highly recommend going check out TeacherPayTeachers which is full of classroom resources created and sold by teachers. Another great place to check for unit studies is Little School of Smiths which is a homeschool family who creates unit studies for their own family and sells them! I will try and gather some more homeschool accounts I follow and share those soon!
   
7. Unschooling
   (I will get some information about this one for you!)

STEP 5: Keep good records
With the “Nonpublic School” option in Louisiana, we don’t actually have to send in curriculum information about what we are using to teach our children, that said, it is still a really good idea to keep a list of the curriculum and grade you use each year for each of your children. Masterbooks has this really great “Cumulative Record” download that you can purchase, which I personally use to help us keep track of what curriculum we use (and plan to use) for school. I only have to pull it out a few times a year to keep track of everything, but if anyone were to ask for some reason, this would be the quickest way for me to list out what curriculum we have used over the years.

STEP 6: Use your resources
When you are planning curriculum, don’t forget to utilize the public library for books, events (some branches host monthly social meetups for homeschool families!), movies, audiobooks, and more!

Check out the Homeschool SWLA Facebook group (mentioned and linked above) for recommendations of local art classes, field trips, music classes, and all kinds of options for outsourcing some of the teaching to others who specialize in things you may not enjoy doing.

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I am wrapping this up here, but I do plan on sharing this with the Homeschool SWLA group so I can add in other recommendations and tips from veteran homeschoolers in Calcasieu Parish!

Please let me know in the comments if you have any questions, or ideas for what other things you would like me to share on here that may help you get started on this homeschool journey!