Hi, I am looking for guidance or advice from someone who homeschools in Illinois.  I have a 4 year old daughter and my husband and I are very seriously considering homeschooling her when the time comes.  I have done a bit of research on the laws in Illinois but I'm not sure how exactly I would go about doing it the right way.  Would I need to notify the school district?  I read that if you are withdrawing your child that you would have to give notice of withdrawal, but what if I never send her in the first place?  If someone has experience with this, I would appreciate any advice that you could give me.  Thank you, Emma

I can help you!!! I live in Ill. We have always home schooled and no you don't have to notify the school district. We never have. Also there are not many regulations or rules for ILL. We have to homeschool for 180 days in the English language in all the core subjects and that is it. you  can PM me if you want any more help.

I will PM you later tonight or tomorrow when I have more than a minute, I'm in the middle of breadmaking with the little one:)

That is just fine. I will be gone for the rest of the evening but will  be home most of tomorrow. We have started 'unoffical' school so I will be doing lessons with my son, he is 11 almost 12!!

We HS in IL.  I've HS'ed DS since he was 4, but from 4-8 we HS'ed in Kansas.  We've HS'ed in IL for nearly 3 years now.

Here's the best place to go for info:

www.illinoishouse.org/

Here's a great Yahoo Group to join for the state:

groups.yahoo.com/group/homeschool-Illinois

There are more YG's in the state.  You can just check for your region/city on the YG directory.  I'm on most of them in the Central IL area.

Compulsory school attendance doesn't start until age 7 in Illinois, so you don't have to worry about *anything* until she's that age for sure.  After that, you still don't - but if it makes you feel better to register, than do.

Our DD is in public school and always has been.  So when we moved here, we had a lot of interaction with the school districts before we even arrived.  Our DD has multiple disabilities and is on an IEP, so we're even more involved with staff.  Our son attends all of her IEP meetings, with staff from both our district, and the district she's bussed to, and no one has said a word to us.  In fact, her therapists give DS assignments to help her.  :-)  I also spoke to the superintendent of our district before the move and he didn't care at all that I have one in HS and one in PS.

Most districts in IL are pretty open to part-time PS enrollment if you ever want it.  Mostly it's high school kids taking driver's ed or a foreign language, but I know some elementary kids with dual enrollment.

Long story short, to answer your question - no, you do not have to notify your district.  We never formally did for DS when we moved.  I have spoken to them about some dual enrollment in the gifted program, but that's as far as we've gotten. (Our previous district in KS offered him a gifted IEP by "consult".)

JC