State guide

Homeschooling in Wisconsin: the PI-1206 report and the 875-hour requirement

Wisconsin asks two things of a homeschooling family: file one report a year by October 15, and teach 875 hours across six named subjects. This page states both with their statutes, works the hours arithmetic out, and maps Faith Schooling material against each subject — including the three it does not publish.

Checked 31 August 2026

What does Wisconsin require to homeschool?

Wisconsin requires a home-based private educational program to file the PI-1206 report with the Department of Public Instruction on or before October 15 each year, and to provide at least 875 hours of instruction in a sequentially progressive curriculum covering reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies, science and health. No testing, approval or license is required.

That is the whole of it. Wisconsin has one filing and one hard number, and the number is where families get caught out — not because 875 hours is difficult, but because nobody sits down in August and divides it by the number of days they intend to teach. This page does that division below, and then shows how little of it any one publisher fills.

What Wisconsin requires of a home-based private educational program
Obligation What it means Governing authority
Annual report File the PI-1206 report with the Department of Public Instruction on or before October 15, stating enrollment as of the third Friday in September and indicating whether the program meets the criteria in s. 118.165 (1). DPI states that parents complete the PI-1206 form every school year. Wis. Stat. § 115.30(3); Wisconsin DPI
875 hours The program provides at least 875 hours of instruction each school year. Wis. Stat. § 118.165(1)(c)
Sequential curriculum A sequentially progressive curriculum of fundamental instruction. Wis. Stat. § 118.165(1)(d)
Six subjects Reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies, science and health. Wis. Stat. § 118.165(1)(d)
Religious content The subsection does not require the program to include any concept, topic or practice in conflict with the program's religious doctrines, or to exclude any consistent with them. Wis. Stat. § 118.165(1)(d)
Good faith The program is not operated or instituted for the purpose of avoiding or circumventing the compulsory school attendance requirement. Wis. Stat. § 118.165(1)(e)
Who may teach Instruction is provided to the child by the child's parent or guardian, or by a person designated by them. A program provided to more than one family unit is not a home-based private educational program. Wis. Stat. § 115.001(3g)
Starting age Compulsory attendance begins at age six. DPI states that if your child will not reach age six on or before September 1, it is not necessary to submit a PI-1206 for that school year. Wisconsin DPI, citing Wis. Stat. § 118.15
Not required No standardized testing, no curriculum approval, no teacher license, no home visit, no portfolio submission. —

Filing the PI-1206 report

The PI-1206 is a short annual report filed with the Department of Public Instruction. You state enrollment and indicate whether your program meets the criteria in Wis. Stat. § 118.165(1). You are reporting and certifying, not submitting lesson plans, test scores or a curriculum list. DPI does not review or approve your materials, and it states plainly that it does not provide personal consultation or technical assistance about home-based programs — its published FAQ is the reference point.

The two dates come from the statute. The enrollment figure is the enrollment on the third Friday of September; the report is due on or before October 15. DPI says the form is completed every school year, so treat it as an annual task rather than a one-time registration. Confirm the current form and submission route on the DPI home-based education page before you file.

Keep your own copy. DPI retains submitted online forms for seven years and says parents may obtain a copy of a previously submitted PI-1206 through their HOMER account, but it also states that maintaining copies is the parent's responsibility. If you are withdrawing a child from a public or private school mid-year, ask DPI and your district about the correct order of withdrawal and filing before you act.

The 875 hours: do the arithmetic before the year starts

Wisconsin counts hours, not days. That is the useful thing about the requirement — it is a single number you can plan against in August and then stop worrying about. Divide 875 by the number of instructional days you actually intend to hold and you have your daily target. A 35-week year at five days a week is 175 days, and 875 divided by 175 is exactly five hours a day.

The statute sets the hour count and the subject list; it does not publish a minute-by-minute definition of what may be counted. Families reasonably count direct lessons, independent reading and written work, read-aloud, drill and review, and educational field study. Rather than estimating in June, time an ordinary week in September and correct the plan against what actually happened. If a borderline question matters to you, ask DPI.

Wisconsin's 875 hours divided by the length of your school year
If your school year is Instructional days Hours you must average each day
35 weeks, five days a week 175 5 hours 0 minutes
36 weeks, five days a week 180 About 4 hours 52 minutes
38 weeks, five days a week 190 About 4 hours 36 minutes
40 weeks, five days a week 200 About 4 hours 23 minutes

How much of the 875 does Faith Schooling material account for?

Here is the arithmetic with published figures only. Faith Schooling publishes a time estimate for two things. The Faith Readers Weekly Lessons show 10 to 15 minutes for a daily lesson and 50 to 75 minutes for a week, across 35 weeks per grade. Learning Cursive is published as 10 to 15 minutes a day. Everything else on the site carries no published time, so this page does not invent one.

Those are lesson times, not the whole of a reading day. Independent reading, read-aloud, written work beyond the lesson and the textbook edition's quarter reviews sit on top of them and are not counted here, because Faith Schooling does not publish a figure for them. Time your own first fortnight and replace these numbers with yours.

Read the last row before you plan. On published times, Faith Schooling's reading and handwriting lessons account for something in the region of sixty to ninety hours of a Wisconsin school year. The 875 is mostly filled by you — by the reading and work that surrounds the lesson, by mathematics, and by the three statutory subjects Faith Schooling does not publish at all.

Published lesson times against a 175-day Wisconsin year, one child
Material Published time Hours across the year
Faith Readers Weekly Lessons — five daily lessons a week (Introduce · Reader · Handwriting · Apply · Check) 10 to 15 minutes a daily lesson; 50 to 75 minutes a week, 35 weeks per grade About 29 to 44
Learning Cursive — ten sequenced workbooks 10 to 15 minutes a day About 29 to 44 across 175 days
Subtotal of published lesson time — About 58 to 88
Reading practice beyond the lesson, mathematics, social studies, science, health and the rest of the day No published figure — you schedule and time this The remainder of the 875

How Faith Schooling maps to the six statutory subjects

Wis. Stat. § 118.165(1)(d) names six subjects. Faith Schooling covers three of them, and its own curriculum map says so: the publisher describes itself as complete for reading and language arts, with a sequenced K–5 mathematics series that is still growing, and states that it does not currently publish science or history programs.

Read the right-hand column before you plan the year. "You supply this" is not a soft caveat — social studies, science and health are statutory subjects in Wisconsin, and no amount of reading material substitutes for them.

Wis. Stat. § 118.165(1)(d) subjects against Faith Schooling material
Statutory subject Faith Schooling material Status
Reading Phonics, Decoding and Early Fluency — six full-year student texts (8,952 student pages) with teaching guides you can read in full before joining; 300 decodable readers, fifty per grade; Foundations to Fluency, 96 workbooks arranged by pattern rather than grade; Phonics Lab Covered
Language arts The same K–5 sequence, which the publisher describes as a complete reading and language arts curriculum; Learning Cursive, ten sequenced workbooks; the Grammar Garden browser game; language arts sets in the practice library Covered — there is no standalone grammar textbook in the catalog
Mathematics Building Number Sense — a student text for every grade K–5, with practice workbooks and teaching guides for Kindergarten through Grade 2 today; the Faith Thinkers math practice library underneath it Sequenced and growing — each grade page lists exactly what exists now
Social studies None published You supply this
Science None published You supply this
Health None published You supply this

"Sequentially progressive" and the religious-content clause

The statute asks for a sequentially progressive curriculum of fundamental instruction. In practice that describes material that builds: this week depends on last week, and the year has an order to it rather than being a pile of unrelated pages. A textbook with a week-by-week scope and sequence answers that description on its face. A folder of downloaded worksheets does not, which is why the practice library on this site is described as practice and never as curriculum.

The same subsection carries a clause worth knowing. It states that it does not require the program to include in its curriculum any concept, topic or practice in conflict with the program's religious doctrines, or to exclude from its curriculum any concept, topic or practice consistent with them. Wisconsin wrote religious liberty into the subject requirement itself. That does not remove the six subjects; it governs how you teach them.

Records worth keeping, even though Wisconsin does not collect them

Wisconsin does not ask you to submit records. On the PI-1206 you indicate whether the criteria are met, which means the records exist for your own protection rather than for inspection. An hours log kept as you go — date, hours, subjects touched — is worth far more than a reconstruction attempted in June.

Keep three things: your PI-1206 confirmations, an hours log, and a sample of finished student work for each subject, including the subjects you supply yourself. Printed curriculum helps here in a way screen-only material does not, because completed workbook pages and written checks are dated evidence of a sequentially progressive year.

Wisconsin homeschool associations and Christian co-ops

The statewide organization is the Wisconsin Homeschooling Parents Association (WHPA), formed in 1984 and describing itself as statewide, inclusive and non-partisan. It publishes current information on Wisconsin homeschooling law and the PI-1206 and monitors legislation affecting homeschoolers. It is a sensible first check when a district asks for something the statute does not require.

Three Christian groups serve the eastern half of the state: Green Bay Area Christian Homeschoolers (GBACH); Appleton Christian Homeschool Fellowship (ACHF), in the Fox Valley; and FISH Home Education Network, which serves homeschooling families in the Madison area. Membership terms, statements of faith and meeting schedules differ, so contact each group directly.

Beyond named groups, look for church-hosted co-ops, hybrid and university-model programs and subject-specific classes. Many are local, small and have no website; ask at churches and at the nearest support group rather than relying on a search engine.

Field study that covers what you have to supply

Wisconsin's field-trip categories happen to cover the three statutory subjects Faith Schooling does not publish, which makes them do double duty rather than serving as a diversion from school.

Worth planning a year around: state government at the Capitol in Madison, and county and municipal meetings closer to home; dairy farms, cheese plants and agricultural science; Great Lakes maritime history and shipbuilding along the Lake Michigan shore; paper mills and manufacturing in the Fox Valley; Northwoods forestry, state parks and glacial geology; and the history and present life of Wisconsin's Native nations. Write the visits up, keep the child's work, and log the hours.

A workable first year

Confirm the current PI-1206 form and filing route with DPI. If you are withdrawing a child from a school, confirm the order of withdrawal and filing with DPI and the district before you act.

Decide the length of your school year first, then read your daily hours target off the table above. Everything else follows from that number.

Place your child for reading with the free HARVEST assessment rather than guessing by age, then set the reading and mathematics spine. Choose or assemble social studies, science and health before September, not in October.

Start the hours log on the first day. Time an ordinary week in the first fortnight and correct the plan against what actually happened.

HARVEST reading placement The full curriculum map Phonics, Decoding and Early Fluency Building Number Sense

Before you rely on this page

This is a plain-language summary written to help you plan. It is not legal advice. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and the statutes themselves are the final word, and requirements change; confirm anything that matters directly with DPI before you file.

Faith Schooling is a Christian K–5 curriculum publisher, not a school, and is not accredited. Its material is sold as one household All Access membership — $39 a month, or $299 for a founding first year and $349 a year after that — covering every child and every grade where the material exists.

Common questions

Does Wisconsin require a homeschool test?
No. Wisconsin does not require standardized testing, curriculum approval, teacher licensing, home visits or portfolio submission for a home-based private educational program. The obligations are the annual PI-1206 report to the Department of Public Instruction and compliance with the criteria in Wis. Stat. § 118.165(1) — 875 hours of sequentially progressive instruction in six subjects. You may test your child for your own purposes; the state does not ask for results.
How do the 875 hours break down per day?
Divide 875 by the number of instructional days you plan to hold. A 35-week year at five days a week is 175 days, which is exactly five hours a day. A 36-week year is 180 days and about four hours fifty-two minutes. A 40-week year is 200 days and about four hours twenty-three minutes. Choose the length of your school year first; the daily target follows from it.
Does Faith Schooling cover everything Wisconsin requires?
No. It covers reading and language arts through Phonics, Decoding and Early Fluency, Foundations to Fluency, the decodable readers, Phonics Lab and Learning Cursive, and covers mathematics through Building Number Sense, which is sequenced and still growing. It publishes nothing for social studies, science or health — three of Wisconsin's six statutory subjects. Families supply those from another source.
What counts as instruction toward the 875 hours?
The statute sets the hour count and the subject list but does not publish a minute-by-minute definition of what may be counted, so families reasonably include direct lessons, independent reading and written work, read-aloud, drill and review, and educational field study. Keep a log as you go rather than reconstructing one later, and take any borderline question to the Department of Public Instruction.
Can we teach the required subjects from a Christian perspective?
Yes. Wis. Stat. § 118.165(1)(d) states that it does not require the program to include any concept, topic or practice in conflict with the program's religious doctrines, or to exclude any consistent with them. The six subjects still have to be taught; the clause governs how. Faith Schooling's material is written from Christian conviction, and Scripture on this site is quoted from the NKJV with the reference given.
When is the PI-1206 due?
Wis. Stat. § 115.30(3) requires the report on or before October 15 each year, stating enrollment as of the third Friday of September and indicating whether the program meets the criteria in s. 118.165(1). The Department of Public Instruction states that parents complete the PI-1206 form every school year. Confirm the current form and submission route on the DPI home-based education page before you file.

Sources

Related Faith Schooling resources