Alabama homeschoolers may gain access to public school career technical classes as soon as the start of the 2026–27 school year under a proposal by Rep. Susan DuBose, R-Hoover.
DuBose told Alabama Daily News HB61 is needed because some homeschoolers are unable to take career tech courses in their local public school. DuBose said that was unfair.
“Every student that they can make room for needs to be allowed to participate,” DuBose said. “Because these parents, they’ve been spending money and paying sales tax, and they’ve been likely living in a home and paying property tax and all this money that funds our Education Trust Fund.”
DuBose filed a similar bill earlier this year that made it through the House and onto the Senate floor but stalled in the final week of the session. The new version for 2025 adds a new provision allowing education savings accounts, or ESAs, to be used to help homeschoolers pay for career tech course fees — like for lab equipment — charged to all public school students.
Up to the school boards
“It’s really advantageous to the schools,” DuBose said. The homeschooler would count as a public school student for the district’s state education funding even though the homeschooler only takes one career tech class.
Starting with the 2025 school year, eligible homeschoolers can use ESAs of up to $2,000 — up to $4,000 per family — to pay for approved expenses for participating education service providers.
Currently, it is up to local boards of education to decide whether to enroll homeschool students in public school classes.
“There are some districts that allow it, but most do not,” she said. “And the more I looked into it, the more I figured out that there is a way that it can be done.”
Her bill would require all local boards of education to adopt a policy to allow homeschoolers to enroll as nontraditional students to take career tech classes if space is available. Once enrolled, homeschoolers are considered as any other public school students, meaning they are responsible for any fees the school charges for career tech courses.
Stand-alone career tech centers will not be required to enroll homeschooled students, but have the option to allow them.
School Superintendents of Alabama Director Ryan Hollingsworth said he worked with DuBose on the previous bill but had not yet read HB61. He said the decision about which students to enroll should be a local one and is concerned that isn’t the way HB61 reads.
“It sounds like this bill is going to take away local control,” he said, adding that schools can already enroll homeschooled students.
Current rules
Under current rules, homeschoolers can participate in public school sports if they follow the Alabama High School Athletic Association rules. Seventh and eighth graders must take one elective, ninth through twelfth graders must take two courses at the school in order to play sports.
However, these rules come from the AHSAA, not the Legislature or the state board of education. The homeschooler counts as a student for funding purposes even though the homeschooler is only taking one or two classes.
DuBose said she supports districts writing their own guidelines, but she doesn’t want them to use that flexibility to deny homeschoolers enrollment altogether.
“I do want districts to be able to have guidelines,” she said. “But I don’t want their guideline to be, ‘We’re not going to do this.’”
She argued that public schools should welcome homeschoolers.
“Generally, you’ve got a homeschooler that’s asking to come into a public school and take an additional class. These are not the troublemaker types,” DuBose said. “They’re there for a reason. They are hard workers, and they’re asking for more work and some more opportunity. So let’s give it to them.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Trisha Powell Crain and originally published by Alabama Daily News. It is reprinted with permission.
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