Remember to file your 2023-24 Wisconsin Homeschool Report PI-1206
WHPA ENCOURAGES YOU TO FILE THE PI-1206 ONLY DURING THE WINDOW BETWEEN THE THIRD FRIDAY IN SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER 15. This has been WHPA guidance for decades, and for good reason.
WHPA encourages you not to file the form earlier than statutorily required. First, statutes do not contain specific dates by accident. All schools in Wisconsin – public, private and homeschools – must comply with the same third-Friday-in-September headcount. This is not by accident. Carefully crafting our statute to maintain equal requirements across all legal programs of education keeps homeschoolers and all other students on the same legal footing. Filing early violates both the word and the spirit of this specific statutory requirement.
Further, filing only within the statutorily mandated window serves to protect our reasonable homeschooling laws for all Wisconsin families. Often in law, doing more than the minimum required by law creates both the belief that doing more than the minimum is required and the belief that doing more than the minimum is expected.
For example, imagine your town has a law that requires you to bring two forms of ID in order to start a basketball team at the rec center. If you bring two forms of ID and a fruit basket, and you tell all your friends to bring two forms of ID and fruit basket, pretty soon the fruit basket is both expected and believed to be required in order to start a basketball team. This kind of erosion of rights through doing more than the law requires can happen quickly and easily, especially when the law in question applies to a small minority, and is poorly understood by laypeople. Wisconsin’s homeschooling laws have remained reasonable and, for the most part unchanged, since 1984, due in great part to the insistence of homeschooling families who came before you, who refused to do more than the law requires.
As a Wisconsin homeschooler, it is your obligation under the law to file the PI-1206 Homeschool Report on or before October 15. You have no duty under the law to file before October 15. It is your choice to do so in a way that ensures and protects your rights, and the rights of all other Wisconsin homeschoolers now and in the future.
It is also the mission of WHPA to encourage parents to act in a way that both meets the minimum requirements of Wisconsin law, and protects our reasonable homeschooling law for all Wisconsin families, now and in the future.
How do I file the PI-1206 Homeschool Report? STEP 1: The form must be filed online. Go to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) website. STEP 2: Follow the instructions on the DPI website to report your homeschool’s enrollment information, and affirm that your homeschool is meeting the requirements of the law, using the HOMER system. Create a username and password. (You are not required to use your email address if you do not wish to use it.) You will need your username and password to log back in to print additional copies of your PI-1206 or to update your contact information or the number of children in your homeschool. STEP 3: When you have filed your form, print a copy of your PI-1206 Homeschool Report for your records, and save an electronic copy.
For printable, detailed, step-by-step instructions for using the HOMER system on the DPI website, click here.
For a sample completed PI-1206 Homeschool Report from a previous year, click here.
What else should I know about the PI-1206 Homeschool Report?
Keep Copies
The DPI only keeps copies for seven years.
It is incumbent on homeschooling parents to maintain copies of their properly filed PI-1206 Homeschool Report for each child for every year.
Update forms as needed
If you add or withdraw a child in your homeschool, return to the DPI HOMER link, and edit your form appropriately.
If you move or your contact information changes, return to the DPI HOMER link, and edit your form appropriately.
If you move away from Wisconsin, return to the DPI HOMER link, and change the number of students to zero.
