Moderate requirements
Homeschooling in Tennessee
Annual notice, attendance records, and testing in grades 5, 7, and 9, or skip the district entirely by enrolling under a church-related umbrella school.
Getting started (notice)
for the independent home school option: an Intent to Home School form filed with your local school district before each school year. Alternatives with no district filing: a church-related 'umbrella' school (Category IV, which handles records and testing) or an accredited online school (Category III).
Required subjects
none specified for the independent option; instruction must run 180 days a year at four hours per day
Records you must keep
attendance records maintained by the parent and available to the district
Testing / evaluation
standardized testing in grades 5, 7, and 9; as of the 2026 law change (HB 1729, signed May 2026), independent homeschoolers may use any nationally normed standardized achievement test (plus options like the CLT, SAT/PSAT, ACT) instead of only the state TCAP, and the old penalties that could force low-scoring students back into public school were repealed
Parent qualifications
for the independent option, the teaching parent must have a high school diploma or a state-approved high school equivalency credential
Where Letters & Devotion fits in Tennessee
Whatever Tennessee asks you to keep, keeping it should not be a job. Letters & Devotion logs instructional hours automatically while your child works, tracks mastery per skill as a ready-made portfolio record, and prints a transcript in one click, so notices, portfolios and evaluations start from records that already exist. The curriculum itself covers every core subject, K through 12.
Read all 84 courses in full before you pay anythingEvery unit, every skill, every objective. No account, no card.$29 a month after the first month. Cancel anytime, in one click.
This is a plain-language summary, not legal advice, and laws change. Last verified 2026-08. Always confirm current requirements with your state before relying on them. Sources:
HSLDA also publishes a plain-language summary of Tennessee's law, at hslda.org/legal/tennessee, and sells a paid legal-defense membership built on top of it. It is an advocacy organization, not a legal authority: its leadership is explicitly Christian, and it lobbies on homeschool legislation, positions a family may or may not share. Read what membership actually costs and covers before joining anything.