Options: Umbrella & County & PEP

Florida home educators have two basic options for enrollment/registration -- enroll your child in a private school that operates as an umbrella school like Florida Unschoolers OR register with your county as a homeschooler. 

A third and relatively new option is to register your child with the PEP program. See the SUFS or AAA websites linked here: Florida Unschoolers - FES--UA (Special Needs) & ESAs 

Each choice involves different paperwork to start with and different recordkeeping/reporting requirements as you go along. That is the biggest difference for most people and choosing between the options comes down to deciding which set of paperwork you want to deal with. 

Florida Unschoolers enrollment information is here. It is the minimum required by law. Other private/umbrella schools may require more and offer more services.

See your county school board's website for information about the county option -- sending in the Letter of Intent, keeping the portfolio and daily log/journal, and having the annual evaluation.

See the link above for information on registering your child with the PEP program instead of the county or a private school like Florida Unschoolers.

Exceptions that apply to SOME home educators:

If your child wants to participate in extracurriculars at the local public school, you should register with the county. Extracurriculars are available to county-registered homeschoolers (usually only during high school but you can check with your local public school to see what they offer) but not to private school students. 

Special needs: This is complicated. Your local public school system will do assessments of your child to determine if they need any special needs services that the public school offers, no matter where the child is enrolled/registered. But they will only provide services to your child if he is registered with your county as a homeschooler and some public schools do not even offer that. 

Neither option is better than the other and people move from one option to the other as needed. It is up to you to choose which option suits your family best!