FAQ — Captain Homeschool
⚓  FAQ

Captain Homeschool is an AI-powered homeschool management platform that handles the hardest parts of homeschooling — curriculum planning, lesson generation, grading, state compliance, and activity tracking — all from one dashboard.

Here’s the basic flow:

  • You set up a Parent Account and add your students, selecting their grade, state, and faith track (Christian, Jewish, or Secular).
  • Captain’s AI generates original daily lessons aligned to your state’s exact curriculum standards.
  • You review and approve everything before it reaches your student — nothing appears in the Student Dashboard without your sign-off.
  • Students complete lessons, quizzes, and activities in their own simplified dashboard.
  • Grades auto-populate your Google Sheets gradebook, attendance is logged, and compliance documents are generated automatically.
Think of Captain Homeschool as your co-teacher, compliance officer, and curriculum director — all in one. You stay in charge. The Captain just does the heavy lifting.

Very likely yes! Captain Homeschool is an approved or pending vendor in Education Savings Account (ESA) programs across 18+ states. Families in many of these states pay $0 out of pocket — the state pays us directly.

Key programs we work with include:

  • Florida — PEP Scholarship (Step Up For Students) — averages $8,000 per student per year
  • Arizona — Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA)
  • Arkansas — Children’s Educational Freedom Account (CEFA)
  • Utah — Fits All Scholarship
  • Georgia — Georgia Promise Scholarship
  • Idaho, Iowa, West Virginia, Wyoming — and more added regularly
Florida families: The PEP Scholarship averages $8,000 per student per year — more than enough to cover a full Captain Homeschool subscription with funds left over for books and activities. We provide ESA-ready itemized receipts for every billing period.

Contact us at support@captainhomeschool.com to confirm your state’s current status.

Every Captain Homeschool subscription includes all three faith tracks. You choose one per student — and you can change it at any time.

  • Christian Track — Biblical worldview woven through every subject. KJV/ASV scripture integration, Young Earth / Old Earth science toggle, church calendar lesson tie-ins, and Awana/VBS community activity matching.
  • Jewish Track — Torah and Parasha integration in language arts and history. Hebrew language elective available. Jewish calendar awareness built in — holidays are learning moments, not schedule gaps. JCC, Maccabi, and BBYO activity matching.
  • Secular Track — 100% pure academic excellence. No religious framing anywhere. Science taught with full scientific consensus. Inclusive community activity matching.
All three tracks meet the same rigorous state curriculum standards. The only difference is the worldview lens through which content is framed. A 5th-grade math lesson covers the same standards in all three tracks — the presentation differs, not the academic rigor.

Captain Homeschool uses a per-student, tiered pricing model — the more students you add, the lower the per-student rate:

  • Students 1–2 — $29.99/student/month
  • Students 3–4 — $21.99/student/month
  • Students 5–10 — $17.99/student/month
  • Students 11+ — $14.99/student/month
Annual billing = monthly rate × 10. You get 2 months completely free. A family with 4 students pays $103.96/month — or $1,039.60/year (saving $207.92). ESA families in qualifying states pay $0 out of pocket.

In addition to curriculum pricing, every student includes a $49.99/year annual assessment fee covering two professionally scored CAT-5 standardized assessments (fall and spring) plus AI-powered Tailwind Boost™ remediation. This fee is added automatically at checkout.

Visit our Pricing page for the full breakdown and family calculation examples.

Nothing reaches your student without your approval. Every AI-generated lesson, quiz, essay prompt, and video recommendation passes through a parent approval gate first. You can review, edit, reject, or approve each item before it appears in your child’s dashboard.

For accuracy, Captain Homeschool uses a multi-layer verification system:

  • A second AI call verifies every quiz question factually before it enters your approval queue.
  • A code-based math validator checks arithmetic and place-value questions independently.
  • For short-answer and essay grading, AI provides a draft grade with a confidence score — you review and can override with one click.
Important: AI-generated content may occasionally contain errors. Parents are responsible for reviewing all content before it reaches students. We are transparent about this and have built our approval workflow specifically to keep you in control at every step.

Captain Connect™ is our free activity finder — included at no extra charge with every Captain Homeschool account, forever. It directly addresses the #1 concern families have about homeschooling: socialization.

Captain Connect automatically finds local opportunities matched to your child’s age, interests, and your family’s faith values:

  • Sports leagues and recreational teams
  • Arts, theater, and music programs
  • STEM, robotics, and coding clubs
  • Scouting and outdoor programs
  • Volunteer and service opportunities
  • Faith community activities (denomination-aware)

Every activity your student participates in is logged and auto-populates their Well-Rounded Score™ dashboard — and eventually their college application transcript. Parents control all enrollment decisions; the student dashboard shows recommendations only.

Every state has different homeschool requirements — some require annual notifications, others require quarterly reports, subject coverage logs, or attendance records. Captain Homeschool’s State Compliance Engine handles all 50 states automatically.

  • Lesson data automatically maps to your state’s required standard codes as you teach.
  • Attendance is logged daily — hours and days tracked per your state’s minimum requirements.
  • A green / yellow / red compliance dashboard shows at a glance whether you’re on track, approaching a gap, or missing a requirement.
  • Required documents — NY IHIP, PA affidavit, quarterly reports — are auto-generated from your existing lesson data. No manual data entry.
New York and Pennsylvania families: We know your reporting requirements are among the most complex in the country. Captain Homeschool’s compliance engine was specifically designed with those states in mind.

Captain Screen™ is our AI-powered YouTube pre-screening system. When Captain generates a lesson, it identifies relevant educational videos and runs them through a screening process before they ever reach you — let alone your student.

Here’s how it works:

  • Captain finds lesson-relevant YouTube content aligned to the topic and grade level.
  • Each video is screened for age appropriateness and faith-track alignment before entering your approval queue.
  • You review the pre-screened selection in your Parent Dashboard and approve or reject each one.
  • Only parent-approved videos appear in the Student Dashboard — students have no direct YouTube access through Captain Homeschool.
Captain Screen™ is not infallible — we always recommend parents preview video content before approving it. You can also adjust sensitivity settings in Account Settings to tighten or loosen filtering for your family’s preferences.

We offer a 3-Day Try-or-Buy window on all new paid subscriptions. During this period you have full access to every feature — AI lesson generation, quizzes, Captain Connect™, Captain Screen™, the works. We want you to sail every deck before committing.

Refund window: 72 hours. Refund requests must be submitted within 72 hours of your initial purchase — no questions asked. Requests submitted after 72 hours will not be approved, even if you are still within the 3-day exploration window.

To request a refund within the window, email support@captainhomeschool.com with the subject line “Refund Request — [Your Account Email]”. Approved refunds are returned to your original payment method within 5–10 business days.

You may cancel your subscription at any time from Account Settings. Cancellation stops future billing but does not generate a refund for the current period — access continues through the end of the paid period.

See our full Refund Policy for complete details including annual plans and ESA-funded accounts.

Protecting your family’s data — especially your children’s — is a core commitment. Captain Homeschool is fully COPPA compliant (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) and follows the Florida Information Protection Act (FIPA).

For students under 13, we collect only the minimum information needed to personalize learning:

  • First name or display name, and grade level
  • Faith track selection
  • State of residence
  • Academic performance data — stored in your own Google Sheets gradebook under your Google account

We do not collect children’s email addresses, phone numbers, photos, precise location, or any financial information. We do not serve ads to children. We do not sell or share children’s data with third parties for any marketing purpose.

Parental rights: You may review, correct, or delete your child’s data at any time by contacting privacy@captainhomeschool.com. Upon request, all associated student data will be purged within 30 days.

Read our full Privacy Policy & COPPA Notice for complete details.

📊 Standardized Testing & Assessments

Every Captain Homeschool student includes a $49.99 per student per year assessment fee, charged once annually at enrollment. This fee covers two professionally administered and scored CAT-5 standardized assessments — one in fall and one in spring — plus AI-powered Tailwind Boost™ remediation.

The assessment fee is separate from your monthly or annual curriculum subscription and appears as its own line item at checkout. Both fees are ESA-eligible expenses in qualifying states.

What you get for $49.99/year per student: Two full-battery CAT-5 tests with premium scoring, detailed subject-level results delivered to your parent dashboard, email notification when results are ready, and automatic Tailwind Boost™ gap analysis if any subject falls behind grade level.

Captain Homeschool uses the CAT-5 (California Achievement Test, 5th Edition), administered through our testing partner Academic Excellence. The CAT-5 is a nationally normed, widely recognized standardized assessment accepted by school districts and states across the country.

  • Full battery — covers reading, language arts, mathematics, and more depending on grade level
  • Online administration — your student takes the test at home on any computer or tablet
  • Untimed — no stopwatch pressure; your child works at their own pace
  • Premium scoring — detailed grade-level equivalency and percentile rankings by subject
Why CAT-5? It is one of the most widely accepted standardized tests for homeschool families. Many states that require annual testing accept CAT-5 results, and it provides the detailed subject-level data we need to power Tailwind Boost™ remediation.

Each student takes two assessments per school year, timed to maximize the value of your data:

  • Fall assessment — during curriculum weeks 2 through 4. This establishes your student’s starting baseline for the year.
  • Spring assessment — during curriculum weeks 31 through 33. This measures growth and identifies any remaining gaps before the year ends.

When your student reaches the testing window, you will receive an email with login credentials for the online testing portal. Your student logs in, takes the test at home, and results are returned within 2–4 weeks.

No scheduling hassle. Captain tracks your student’s curriculum progress automatically and notifies you when the testing window opens. You don’t need to remember dates or coordinate with a testing center.

Test results are delivered in two ways:

  • Parent Dashboard — results appear directly in your guardian dashboard with subject-level scores, grade-level equivalencies, and percentile rankings. You can view and download a PDF copy at any time.
  • Email notification — you will receive an email as soon as results are available, with a direct link to view them in your dashboard.

Results typically arrive 2–4 weeks after your student completes the assessment. Scores include composite totals and individual breakdowns for reading, language arts, mathematics, and other tested subjects.

Results also feed Tailwind Boost™. If any subject shows your student testing more than one grade level below their enrolled grade, Captain automatically generates supplemental lessons to close the gap — no extra cost, no action required from you.

Tailwind Boost™ is Captain Homeschool’s AI-powered supplemental remediation system, triggered automatically by your student’s CAT-5 assessment results.

Here’s how it works:

  • After each assessment, Captain analyzes subject-level scores against your student’s enrolled grade level.
  • If any subject shows a gap of more than one grade level, Tailwind Boost™ activates for that subject.
  • Captain generates targeted supplemental lessons designed to close the specific gap — delivered alongside your student’s regular curriculum, not as a replacement.
  • Progress is tracked until the next assessment confirms the gap has closed.
Captain Homeschool doesn’t just test your child — it responds. Tailwind Boost™ is included at no additional cost. There is no deficit language, no labeling, and no disruption to your student’s regular learning schedule. It’s a tailwind — extra momentum in the right direction.

Yes, the CAT-5 standardized assessment is mandatory for all enrolled students. It is built into the Captain Homeschool enrollment process and cannot be opted out of separately.

We made this decision for three important reasons:

  • Accountability — standardized assessments provide objective, third-party validation that your student is making academic progress.
  • ESA compliance — many state ESA programs require or strongly recommend annual standardized testing. Having it built in keeps your family in good standing.
  • Tailwind Boost™ — without assessment data, our AI remediation system cannot identify and close learning gaps. The test is what powers the personalized response.
The assessment fee ($49.99/student/year) is included automatically at checkout. It covers both the fall and spring assessments, premium scoring, and Tailwind Boost™ remediation — all included. No surprise charges mid-year.