by Angela Lasch
Sep. 21, 2026
Depending on your personality, recordkeeping either brings you joy or makes you want to hide under the covers. I'm in the first camp: I love organizing documents and spreadsheets, and binders with sheet protectors make me smile. But if recordkeeping feels overwhelming to you, take heart. This article will walk you through the basics of keeping accurate, organized records for your homeschool.
This article is written for families who file their own Private School Affidavit (PSA). If you belong to a Private School Satellite Program (PSP), you'll follow their guidelines instead, which may be similar to what's covered here. No matter how you privately homeschool, this article offers helpful tips for organizing your homeschool paperwork.
According to the California Education Code for Private Schools (33190 & 48222), your records must include:
A copy of your PSA, filed yearly
Attendance
Courses offered
Faculty qualifications
Health and vaccination records, as required by California Health and Safety Code 120375
Here's what each of these involves.
Each year, between October 1 and 15, file your PSA online with the California Department of Education. This isn't as intimidating as it sounds. It's simply an affidavit stating that you're operating a private school in your home and that your children are your students, not a request for permission to homeschool.
CHEA hosts a free PSA Filing Party webinar each year that walks you through the process step by step. CHEA members can watch a recording anytime in our Digital Library, and anyone can download our free step-by-step PDF guide from our website or call our office for help.
After you file your PSA online, print a hard copy and save a digital copy. Keep both indefinitely.
California Education Code 48222 requires that attendance records “indicate clearly every absence of the pupil from school for a half day or more.” You can track attendance with a yearly calendar, marking only the days your student is absent (the minimum requirement), or with a spreadsheet that also logs present days, holidays, and weekends and totals everything automatically.
CHEA offers a downloadable attendance form on our website. On this form, you can mark how many days you do school each year. Remember, as a private school, you determine the total number of days. While the “norm” in California is about 170-180 days, there is no actual minimum requirement.
You're required to list the courses your school will offer. California Education Code 48222 names math, language arts, history/social studies, science, visual and performing arts, health, PE, and foreign language. As a private school, you choose which of these to teach and when; you don't have to cover every core subject every year. Most families make a yearly list of subjects along with the curriculum and books they plan to use. CHEA has downloadable forms for this as well.
This document causes the most worry but is one of the simplest. It just states that the teaching parents are qualified to teach. List everyone named on your PSA. For example, if you're the primary teacher but your husband teaches history and/or is listed as principal on your PSA, both of you need to be listed on this form.
You'll need each person's name, address, and qualifications. There are no required credentials; being the parent of your student qualifies you. You can note your education, any professional development (webinars, conventions), or teaching experience (Sunday school, VBS, years of homeschooling). Don't overthink it. You can view an example on our website.
In California, home-based private schools are exempt from immunization requirements, but you still need to keep the record: form CDPH-296, sometimes called the “blue form.” (CA Health and Safety Code 120375) If you don't vaccinate, fill in your student's and parent's names and address, leave the vaccination section blank, and check “home-based private school.”
The second required form is either the Health Examination for School Entry or a waiver. One of these must be filed in your student's cumulative record within 90 days of starting school. Both are downloadable on our website. If your child previously attended a public or private school, you likely already have these forms from their cumulative file.
The records above are the minimum the State of California requires. We also recommend keeping the following.
Progress reports, report cards, and transcripts. For younger students, a progress report that tracks a few subjects a few times a year works well and shows how they're doing. As students get older, you can move to report cards with grades. We recommend all high school students keep a transcript, since colleges, the military, and some employers will ask for one. Downloadable forms for all of these are on the Downloadable Forms page on our website.
Work samples. Keep these in a binder. Even just a workbook page from the beginning and end of the year, for each subject, shows your student's progress and makes a great memory keepsake.
A curriculum list. A simple year-by-year record of what you used helps you remember what worked, which is especially useful with younger children once you have more experience. Many families simply include this on their Course of Study each year. It also gives you a ready answer when other homeschooling friends ask what curriculum you use.
Course descriptions (high school). For each subject, note the subject name, the curriculum title and publisher, a brief description of what's taught, and how you plan to grade. You can view an example on our website.
Lesson plans. You might have heard this saying: When you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Having a simple lesson plan will help keep you on track throughout the year. Keeping these gives you something to look back on and provides documentation of what you taught each student. There are several examples in CHEA’s Downloadable Forms.
Standardized test results. These aren't required, but if you choose to have your student take standardized tests, keep the test results with your records.
A book log and field trip log. The book log is one of my favorite records to keep. It doesn't need to be complicated: just add a book (title and author) whenever you finish one. A few years in, you'll be amazed at how much you and your children have read together.
A field trip log, which is part of CHEA’s Field Trip Guide PDF available to members, can be as simple as noting the date, destination, weather, and your child's favorite part. For older students, this can become an assignment: have them write a short paragraph about what they learned or enjoyed most.
There's no single right way to organize your records. Keep it as simple or as thorough to the level that works best for you.
Digital records. At a minimum, keep a PDF of your PSA. A spreadsheet is an easy way to track attendance. We also recommend keeping your faculty qualifications and course of study. Keeping your book and field trip logs digitally makes it easier to add to them each year.
Hard copies. Keep a school binder with your PSA, faculty records, health records, and course of study for each year; these are typically completed once, at the start of the year and then checked at the end of the year if anything changed in the course of study.
For each student, keep a separate binder (sheet protectors save you from hole-punching) with their attendance, progress reports or report cards, work samples, book log, and field trip log.
Cumulative file. This file holds only what's required and travels with your child if they ever enroll in a public or private school. Keep it clean, typed, and easy to read. You don't need to keep every record in paper form forever, but do keep everything stored electronically.
If this all feels like a lot, take a breath. The required paperwork for filing your own PSA and homeschooling in California is minimal. Once you start, you'll likely find that even the optional recordkeeping becomes a joy, since it's a wonderful way to see what you and your students are learning together.
If you have questions, we're here to help.
You can find all our downloadable forms here. If you are a CHEA member, visit the Member Resources tab to watch our PSA Filing Party and Recordkeeping webinars in our Digital Library.
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Angela Lasch is the Executive Director of CHEA. She and her husband homeschooled their three sons. She now enjoys being "Nana" to two granddaughters. Grateful for her own homeschool journey and the sacrificial giving of countless families who made it possible, Angela now dedicates herself to encouraging, supporting, and protecting homeschool families throughout California.
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