🧩 Special Needs & Special Education Homeschooling in Louisiana
What Louisiana offers homeschool families of children with disabilities or learning differences — special-needs scholarships, evaluations and services — from our Louisiana guide and articles.
Other Louisiana programs: special needs, tuition donation scholarships, tax deductions, TOPS and dual enrollment
School Choice Program for Certain Students with Exceptionalities: tuition help at a participating BESE-approved nonpublic school for students with disabilities in Caddo, Calcasieu, East Baton Rouge, Jefferson, Lafayette, Orleans and St. Tammany parishes. It pays 50% of the district's state per-pupil funding (about
,500), up to the school's tuition. It does not pay for home study and cannot be combined with LA GATOR. (LDOE)
Sports and special education for home study students
Special education: LDOE's home study guidelines tell parents of children with exceptionalities to contact their local school system before enrolling in BESE-approved home study, to learn what free and appropriate educational services are available. Louisiana's special education rules (Bulletin 1706) require public agencies to keep looking for students suspected of having a disability who need special education, including students enrolled in a private school program in the agency's area and students not enrolled in any school (Bulletin 1706 §111). For children whose parents enroll them in private schools, the district where the school is located must locate, identify and evaluate them, and it serves those it designates through a services plan (§§131–132). If the parent of a home-schooled child declines consent for an evaluation or doesn't answer, the district can't override that, and it isn't required to treat the child as eligible for private school services (§301). Districts must find and evaluate gifted and talented private school students, but no district has to provide gifted services to students in private schools or home school programs (§1129).
Special education: LDOE says students in either home study option don't qualify for IDEA services or Section 504 accommodations, while Bulletin 1706's child find rules reach children who aren't enrolled in a school. Because these don't line up neatly, ask your district's special education office, in writing, whether it will evaluate your child and what, if anything, it will provide while your child is in home study.