California Private School Affidavit: Field-by-Field Walkthrough

Starting a home-based private school in California runs on one piece of paperwork: the Private School Affidavit. If you have been searching for the california homeschool affidavit, this is the form you mean — a free, annual online filing with the California Department of Education that lets your household operate as a private school. This walkthrough covers the filing window, every field in plain English with sample wording, how to withdraw from school properly, and what records you keep afterward.

In This Article

1. What Is the California Private School Affidavit?
2. Who Needs to File a PSA — and Who Doesn't?
3. When Is the Filing Window — and What If You Start Mid-Year?
4. Field-by-Field: What Goes in the Affidavit
5. How Do You Withdraw Your Child From Their Current School?
6. What Records Must You Keep?
7. What Happens After You File?
8. Common PSA Mistakes

What Is the California Private School Affidavit?

The Private School Affidavit is an annual online statement filed with the California Department of Education declaring that a private school is operating and enrolling students. That private school can be your own household with one teacher — you — and three students.

The legal scaffolding sits in two places. California Education Code §33190 requires private schools offering instruction at the elementary or high school level to file an annual affidavit. Education Code §48222 exempts children attending a full-time private school from public school compulsory attendance. Together, those two sections are why a filed affidavit is all the authorization a family school needs.

This is a different model from the one most states use. In states with a notice of intent to homeschool, you are telling a district that you are homeschooling. In California, you are not homeschooling in the eyes of the law at all — you are operating a small private school, and your children are enrolled in it.

⚠️ The most common misunderstanding: no one approves your school. The California Department of Education does not accredit, license, evaluate, or inspect PSA filers, and it does not issue an approval letter. You will receive a filing confirmation, and that is the whole transaction. Anyone telling you to wait for permission is describing a step that does not exist.

Because requirements and form wording can change between school years, confirm the current details against the California Department of Education's private schools page before you file.

Who Needs to File a PSA — and Who Doesn't?

You file your own affidavit only if you are running your own home-based private school for children of compulsory school age. Plenty of California families educate at home without ever touching the form, because someone else files on their behalf.

There are four recognized routes:

1. File your own PSA — you are the school and the administrator.
2. Enroll in a public charter or independent study program — the charter is a public school, handles compliance, and often provides funds for materials. You file nothing.
3. Enroll in a private school satellite program (PSP) — the PSP files its own affidavit, and your child is listed under its enrollment.
4. Private tutoring — instruction by a person holding a valid California teaching credential for the grade taught, meeting the hours and days set out in Education Code §48224.

Route	Who files the paperwork	Typical cost	Oversight	Best fit for
Own PSA	You, each October	Free to file; you buy materials	None from the state	Families wanting maximum control
Charter / independent study	The charter school	Publicly funded	Assignments, meetings, reporting to the charter	Families wanting funds and structure
Private school satellite program	The PSP	Enrollment fee set by the PSP	Record-keeping handled by the PSP	Families wanting support without charter rules
Credentialed private tutor	No affidavit; credential applies	Tutor's rate	Credential requirement	Families hiring a credentialed teacher

One exception catches new parents off guard: compulsory attendance begins at age six, so a five-year-old who is not yet six by the cutoff is not legally required to be enrolled anywhere. Many families file anyway for tidiness, but it is not required yet.

If you are weighing these routes for the first time, it helps to start homeschooling step by step rather than deciding everything in one evening.

Key takeaway: Filing a PSA is one of four legal paths — pick the route first, then the paperwork follows automatically.

When Is the Filing Window — and What If You Start Mid-Year?

The annual filing window is October 1 through October 15. The affidavit is posted online for that period, so there is no year-round filing page to fall back on.

The part the official page does not spell out clearly: families who begin home education outside that window — in January, in April, the week after a hard parent-teacher conference — generally file the affidavit at the time they begin, covering the remainder of that school year, and then file again during the next October window. If you are starting late, it is worth confirming the current process directly with the CDE's private schools office rather than guessing.

Sequence matters more than speed. The order most families use:

1. Decide and pick a start date — a clean Monday is easier than a mid-week exit.
2. File the affidavit (or confirm your charter/PSP enrollment) so your school exists on paper.
3. Send written notice to the current school stating the withdrawal date.
4. Request the student's records in the same letter.
5. Save the confirmation and set a reminder for next October.

⚠️ Do not withdraw first and file later. If a child is pulled from a california school with no private school on record, you leave a gap that a district attendance office may follow up on. Establish the school, then send the letter.

Field-by-Field: What Goes in the Affidavit (With Sample Wording)

The affidavit asks for roughly twenty items, and for a single-family school most of them are one-line answers you will reuse every year. Two terms trip people up first.

School administrator is the person legally responsible for the school's operation and records — in a family school, that is the filing parent. Enrollment count refers to the total number of students enrolled at each grade level on the date you file, not the number of children in your home.

Field group	What it's asking	Sample answer for a family home school
School name	A name for your private school	"Riverbend Home Academy"
Physical address	Where instruction takes place	Your street address — not a PO box
Mailing address	Where correspondence goes	Same as physical, or a PO box if you prefer
County / phone / email	Contact details	Your county and everyday contact details
Administrator	Person filing and responsible	Your full legal name
Enrollment by grade	Students at each grade level	"Grade 2: 1, Grade 5: 1"
Teachers / staff	Number of full- and part-time teachers	"1 full-time" (you)
Attendance records	Whether a register is maintained	Yes
Courses of study	Whether a course list is maintained	Yes
Faculty qualification records	Whether teacher records are kept	Yes
Immunization / health records	Whether records are kept per state law	Yes
Employee background questions	Fingerprinting and criminal record checks for employees	Usually not applicable — a family school with no employees

Keep the answers honest and simple. "Yes" to the record-keeping questions is a commitment, not a formality — those three registers are the records California actually expects you to hold.

Requirements and the exact wording on the form can change from year to year, so read each question on the live form before you submit rather than copying last year's answers from memory.

Key takeaway: For most families, the affidavit is twenty short answers, and only the record-keeping commitments carry ongoing obligations.

How Do You Withdraw Your Child From Their Current School?

Send a short, dated letter to the principal stating that your child is withdrawing to enroll in a private school, effective on a specific date. You are notifying the school, not requesting permission, and you do not need to name your school or attach your affidavit.

Sample wording you can adapt:

Dear Principal [Name],

This letter confirms that [Child's full name], date of birth [DOB], currently enrolled in Grade [X], is withdrawing from [School Name] effective [date], as they are enrolling in a private school.

Please update your records accordingly and provide copies of the cumulative file, transcripts, immunization records, and any IEP or 504 documentation.

Sincerely, [Your name and date]

Your school withdrawal checklist:

• Date the letter and keep a copy for your own file.
• Deliver it in writing — email with a read receipt or hand-delivery with a dated copy.
• Request the cumulative record, transcripts and attendance history.
• Request immunization records — you will need them for your own files.
• Request any IEP or 504 documents if your child has them.
• Disenroll from the charter separately if you are leaving an independent study program; the charter has its own process.

Store everything that comes back in one place. Those documents become the foundation of your homeschool portfolio and record keeping system, and they are the easiest records to lose in a busy first month.

What Records Must a California Home-Based Private School Keep?

California private schools are expected to maintain three things: an attendance register, a list of courses of study offered, and faculty records showing each teacher's qualifications. There is no state standardized testing requirement, no curriculum approval, and no portfolio review for PSA filers.

An attendance register is a simple dated record showing which students were present on which instructional days. A spreadsheet works. If you want a system that survives a busy term, here is a practical approach to how to track homeschool hours without it becoming a second job.

Legally required:

• Attendance register for each school year
• Courses of study offered by the school
• Faculty records, including qualifications of the person teaching

Smart to keep anyway:

• Dated work samples in each core subject
• Reading logs and book lists
• Short progress notes per subject, per term
• Immunization and health records
• Anything a district might ask for if your child later re-enrolls in a public school

That last line is the practical reason to keep more than the minimum. If a student returns to a district school, placement conversations go faster when you can show what was taught and when.

Key takeaway: Three records are mandatory — attendance, courses, faculty qualifications — and everything else you keep is for your own confidence and your child's future transcript.

What Happens After You File — and How Do You Plan the Actual Year?

You receive a confirmation and a school code, and your school appears in the state's private schools directory. Then nothing else happens. No visit, no review, no curriculum submission. The teaching plan is entirely yours.

That silence is the real beginning. The affidavit takes twenty minutes; deciding what your second grader does on a Tuesday in February takes considerably longer. Most new California families underestimate the planning, not the paperwork.

If the part you are dreading is the Sunday-night ritual of stitching together worksheets and wondering whether your child is actually on grade level, that is the part that can be handed off. LearnSpark builds daily, standards-aligned lesson plans around each child's level and interests, and keeps the progress and course records updated as you teach — so the attendance and course documentation the affidavit commits you to largely builds itself. Your attention stays on the child at the table instead of on the planning spreadsheet.

Whatever tool you use, decide early how you will show progress. A simple approach to homeschool progress tracking turns your records from a chore into reassurance.

Common PSA Mistakes California Families Make

Five errors cause most of the headaches for families who homeschool California-style:

1. Missing the October 1–15 window. The form is posted only during that period. Fix: set a recurring calendar reminder for October 1 the moment you file.
2. Filing while still enrolled in a charter. Double enrollment creates a conflict between a public school record and a private school filing. Fix: complete the charter's disenrollment first.
3. Listing a PO box as the physical address. The physical address is where instruction happens. Fix: use your street address there and your PO box for mail.
4. Treating it as one-and-done. The affidavit is annual. Fix: re-file every October for as long as your school operates.
5. Waiting for a reminder. No notice arrives to tell you it is time. Fix: own the date yourself.

Key takeaway: The day you file, create a recurring October 1 reminder — that single habit prevents the most common compliance gap in California home education.

Affidavit filed? The fun part is next. Let LearnSpark build your first week of standards-aligned lessons — tailored to each child's level and interests — free to try.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does California require a teaching credential to homeschool?

No — not if you file your own Private School Affidavit. A credential requirement applies to the separate private tutor option under Education Code §48224, where a credentialed individual provides the instruction. Parents operating their own home-based private school under §33190 are not required to hold a California teaching credential.

Is the California homeschool affidavit free to file?

Yes. There is no filing fee for the Private School Affidavit. Your real costs are curriculum, materials and any classes or co-op fees you choose. California does not currently offer a state homeschool tax credit either — the details are covered in this guide to California homeschool tax credits.

Do I file one affidavit per child or one per family?

One affidavit per school, not per child. A family with a 2nd grader, a 5th grader and a 9th grader files once and reports one student in each of those three grades. If you later add a child, you report the updated counts on your next annual filing.

Will my home address be published publicly?

The state maintains a searchable private schools directory built from affidavit data. The form includes an option regarding public display of information for schools below a small enrollment threshold. Read that question carefully on the live form before submitting, and select the option that matches your preference.

What happens if I miss the October 1–15 window?

File as soon as you realize, and contact the CDE's private school data office for guidance on late filing. The affidavit applies to the current school year, so waiting a full year leaves your school unrecorded for that entire period. Document the date you discovered the issue and the steps you took.

Summary

Filing the california homeschool affidavit is the shortest part of starting home education in this state: a free annual form, filed October 1–15, that turns your household into a private school with no approval step and no curriculum review. Withdraw from school in writing after your school exists on paper, request every record the district holds, and keep attendance, course and faculty records going forward. The form is twenty minutes. The year you build afterward is the part worth your energy.

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