Home Education Funding

As discussed in “Notification”, parents may register their child or children as home schooling students with thee by officially notifying thee of their intent to do so. Parents may make this official notification between the dates of March 20th and September 29th of a given year. The province of Alberta provides home education funding to each registered home school student, and this funding is distributed and accounted for via an associate school board or an associate private school.

For the 2024-25 school year, the funding amount for each (funded) home education student is as follows:
1. Grade levels 1 to 12: $901.00
2. Grade level of kindergarten: $450.50

The deadline for submitting the Reimbursement Request Form and the associated receipts to THEE’s office is mid-May. THEE will communicate the exact day of this deadline to you via the Confirmation Letter and monthly newsletters.

You must renew your notification of your intent to home school by re-registering your child or children with thee for each new school year; the previous year’s notification expires at the end of that particular school year. Students may only be registered with one board at one time. Please call us immediately if your plans change before September 29th. The government grant (your home education funds) for home education is intended to defray the costs that parents will incur when they purchase learning materials or services (e.g. textbooks, tutoring, etc.) for their home education program.

Parents are able to access their home education funding through direct billing (i.e. purchase order (PO) numbers) and/or reimbursement for receipts submitted for the current year once their child’s Program Plan is in place. The Program Plan is your roadmap for the how-when-where-why of your home-based instruction, and in order to get reimbursed for your purchases of home learning materials or services, you must be sure that the materials support your program plans. For reimbursements, THEE may not issue home education funds to the parent(s) without first having received copies of the receipts for the materials and/or services. To do otherwise would force Revenue Canada to consider the amount that you received from your home education funding to be taxable income. Direct billing (i.e. a purchase order number) is available upon request (see “How It Works/Funding” for a list of vendors and suppliers).

 

Additional FUNDING things to know and forms to download:

Funding Timeline

Download Schedule for Funding & Reimbursement

NOTE: Prior to October 1st of each school year, THEE can provide PO#s to only home educating parents who were with THEE during the previous school year. After October 1st, families who are new to THEE may begin to receive PO#s. This policy is also stated in our, “Early Purchase Agreement”, form.

To get a purchase order (PO) number that you can use to pay for your home schooling supplies or services, please follow these steps:

  1. Email THEE’s office at finance@thee.ca at least 2 days before you go to the store. Do not call THEE’s office after you’ve selected your items and as you are standing at the checkout counter.  Not a good idea  (trying to have some humour here!). We need time to process your request for a PO#, and with some vendors, we have to communicate the parent’s PO# information at least 2 school working days in advance so that the vendor can have that information available to the employees who work the check-out tills.  All of this communication, which takes place behind the scenes, takes time.
  2. In the email message to finance@thee.ca, you will need to state the name of the store (vendor), its location (some vendors have multiple stores, and the PO# is specific to a single store), and the dollar amount of your planned purchase.

Limitations for the Purchase Order number

  1. Each individual PO# applies to only one store and to one total purchase/transaction/receipt of one or more resources; the PO# is tied to the one receipt for one or more items from that store.
  2. The individual PO# does not apply to multiple purchases from the same store (even on the same day) or from different stores. The PO# is not like a pre-paid credit card that you can use at multiple stores for multiple purchases. The PO# is good for only one transaction at the stated store.
  3. If you do not spend the entire amount of the PO#, you can not spend the unused balance anywhere…even at the same store later…even if “later” is the same day. The PO# can be used only once at one store at one given time for one transaction.
  4. We can not change your PO# (vendor or dollar amount) after we have created and sent the PO# to you and the vendor.
    NOTE: We recommend that you add an additional $30-$50.00 to the dollar amount that you think that you’ll need so that you won’t run into the problem of having your requested dollar amount not cover the entire purchase price of your order from the vendor.

The supplier will in turn bill us, and we will pay the bill on your behalf. For returning THEE families, direct billing for the first half of your home education funding for the upcoming school year can take place as early as July 15th, upon your sending to thee’s office your child’s Notification Form and completed Education Program Plan for the upcoming school year. The funding is available for any learning resources related to the home education program. For the official word on what the province defines as a reimbursable home schooling expense, see the “Funding” section in the “Home Education Regulations”, article (8) (5) (a) & (b).

You’ll need to sign this form and provide it to THEE’s office in order to have early access to your home education funding (if you are a returning THEE family for the upcoming school year), to use the direct billing service (i.e. Purchase Order Numbers), and to avoid paying for your home learning materials “out of pocket”. This requirement to sign the form is a one-time requirement; we will keep this form in your family’s funding file for the school years that you are homeschooling with us.

NOTE: For Returning-to-THEE Families Only…This form is not for “New-to-THEE” families.

Download the Early Purchase Agreement form (.pdf)

THEE is able to provide you with a Direct Deposit for your home education reimbursement funds. If you would like this service, please complete the form.

A remittance statement will be emailed to the email address indicated in the email form when the funds are being deposited to your bank account.

Download the Direct Deposit Agreement form (.pdf)

To see a list of vendors who currently accept Purchase Orders from thee, » Download the Vendors’ List (.pdf)

Did you know that you can see your current funding balance of your parent home education funding directly from within your parent account in PowerSchool? It’s true!
Just follow these instructions:
1. Log into your parent account within PowerSchool.
2. In the left-hand margin is a column of icons for specific categories of information.  Click on the, Home Education Resources, icon (2nd from the top).

3. In the ensuing page, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to find your funding balance (and other information) under the, Home Ed Reimbursement History, heading. At the end of the school year, you can also see the amount of your unspent funding that will carry-over into the upcoming school year.

If you do not want to use the “direct billing” service, then you can purchase your home schooling materials with your own “out of pocket” money, and you can then send the receipt(s) from the purchase(s) of the home school materials to thee to receive a reimbursement payment that comes from your son or daughter’s “Home School Grant” funds. Along with the receipt or a copy of your receipt, you will need to include a completed “Reimbursement Form” which shows each resource that you bought along with its price.

NOTE: For e-commerce/online purchases/Bill-of-Sale purchases, the invoice that you provide to THEE to substantiate your reimbursement request must have the name of the home educating parent(s) or legal guardian(s) as the name of the buyer. For example, with an invoice/receipt from Amazon.ca, the name of the parent(s) or legal guardian(s) will need to appear in the, “Billing address”, and, “Ship-To Address”, sections. For exemptions to this rule, please email your request and reason for the exemption to our finance email address, which will be in your confirmation letter and monthly newsletters.

Download Reimbursement Form (.pdf)

Instructions for Completing the Reimbursement Form (please keep and use for your reference during the school year)

This form enables you to either

  1. print the form and hand-write your information onto the form, or
  2. type your information directly into the PDF document, save the document, sign it using the built-in “Sign” tool so that you can use your mouse as your digital pen to sign the PDF document, and to email the form to the email address shown on the form. Best practice is to “Save as” the file BEFORE you begin to enter your information into the document.

Please review our, “How To”, form to learn helpful information related to completing your, “Reimbursement Form”, correctly so that we can get your reimbursement payment to you ASAP!

Download the, “How to Complete the Reimbursement Form”, instruction guide (.pdf)

Info-video #1 with helpful information: https://thee.ca/video-open-house/2019/02/15/completing-our-reimbursement-form/

Info-video #2 with helpful information: https://thee.ca/video-open-house/2021/03/29/top-10-dos-and-donts-when-completing-your-reimbursement-form/

Info-video #3 with helpful information: https://thee.ca/video-open-house/2021/09/14/reimbursement-which-we-cant-approve/

If you want to use your home education funding to pay for tutoring and/or group lesson, please use the following form to provide us with the needed information that Alberta Education is now requiring.  Please include this completed form with your “Reimbursement Form” that you will send to us with your other receipts. You can type your information directly into this form and then print the form; you’ll still need to sign it and have the tutor/instructor sign the form.

Download the Tutorial or Group Lesson Reimbursement Form (.pdf)

Who is Eligible for Home Education Funding?

  1. The Child
    .
    For Kindergarten
    .
    To register at a formal home education  program, a child must be at least 4 years 8 months of age as of August 31st and less than 6 years of age as of September 1 of the given school year. One or both parents (or legal guardian) and child must be a resident of Alberta as of September 29th of the given school year.
    .
    For the 2024-25 school year, a child needs to have been born on or before December 31, 2019, in order to be age-eligible to register/notify with a home education program.
    .
    .
    For Grades 1-12
    .
    To register at a formal home education  program, a child must be at least 5 years 8 months of age but less than 20 years of age as of September 1st of the given school year. One or both parents (or legal guardian) and child must be a resident of Alberta as of September 29th of the given school year.
    .
    For the 2024-25 school year, a child needs to have been born on or before December 31, 2018, in order to be age-eligible to register/notify with a home education program.
    ..
  2. The Parent
    .
    For the option of the supervised and thus funded Home Education program, the home educating parent or legal guardian must adhere to the two following requirements of The Home Education Regulation in order to be eligible to receive the Home Education funding from Alberta Education.

    1. To “…be available for a regular review* of the student’s achievement…” with the associate board-assigned home education monitor
    2. To “…ensure that the student is available…” during the above-described meeting with the associate board-assigned monitor.

    .
    These above-listed requirements are just two in a list of requirements which home educating parents must meet in order to receive the Home Education funding. Other very well-known requirements that parents must meet in order to be eligible to receive Home Education funding include
    – To complete the Notification Form each school year
    – To develop and manage an Education Program Plan for each school year
    .
    For a full and summarized list of parental responsibilities, please refer to page 6 of the Home Education Handbook.

    One of the goals of the office staff at THEE is to provide the home education funding to the parents as quickly, efficiently, and correctly as possible, and within these processes of reimbursement lies our professional responsibility to accomplish this goal per the rules which Alberta Education has established for all home education programs to follow. We will work with a home educating parent (sometimes across semesters) to find creative and flexible solutions for overcoming life’s challenges which often get in the way of the parent being able to meet with the home education facilitator for the two required visits.  However, when the parent displays a refusal to meet with the facilitator and a repeated disregard for the facilitator’s good-faith efforts to meet with the parent, then we in the office must suspend the reimbursement of home education funds to the parent.

    If the parent or legal guardian does not want to adhere to these two requirements but still wants to offer a Home Education program to the child or children, then the parent has the option of the unsupervised Home Education program. For more information on the unsupervised and thus unfunded Home Education program option, please click HERE.
    .
    .

    *Associate Boards and Associate Private Schools must conduct at least two (2) student evaluations at “regular intervals” during the school year.

Please review our letter, which is part of your official, “Confirmation Package”, to learn helpful information related to our reimbursement processes so that we can get your reimbursement payment to you ASAP!

Download the Letter from Our Finance Office (.pdf)

Home Education Funding is not transferable between boards or schools. 

THEE’s Policy Regarding The Parent Keeping the Purchased Learning Resources:
According to the Alberta Education Home Education Regulations, all home learning resources that the parent purchase and receive reimbursement for are the property of the school administration to dispose of as the board sees fit; however, our official and written policy here is to enable the parents of the student for whom these resources were purchased to keep these resources. In other words, you get to keep your own stuff!

FUNDING:

Approved Reimbursements

POLICY FOR REIMBURSING HOME EDUCATION PURCHASES:

Determining which learning resources are and are not eligible for reimbursement is an ongoing challenge for both the parent and for us here at THEE , and we at THEE have provided to you a list of learning resources which are and are not eligible for reimbursement as based on our best efforts to understand the current practices of the auditing branch of Alberta Education.

Additional Information

According to the rules set by Alberta Education and recorded in the Home Education Regulation regarding how a home educating parent may use the home education funds for each home educating student, the parent must

  1. use the funding only to defray the costs incurred by the parent for programs of study, instructional materials, or other resources related to the home education program
  2. provide the home education program with receipts showing how the parent(s) spent the funding

And the parent may not

  1. use the funding to pay him/herself for providing the home education instruction, management, or supervision
  2. use the funding to pay for travel costs or other expenses usually required to be paid by a parent of a student who is enrolled in a school
  3. receive funding reimbursement for the purchase price of a learning resource when someone other than the parent or legal guardian of the home educating child purchased that learning resource. The invoice/receipt (if applicable) must show the name of the parent or legal guardian as the purchaser of the product or service.