Six families, a church hall, Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Homeschool co-ops
NavEd fits the way Homeschool co-ops already run: grades, attendance, records and a transcript, without asking anyone to be a district first.
A homeschool co-op runs on parents who volunteered and kept saying yes. NavEd keeps the roster, the fees, the signed forms, and the records straight so the coordinator can spend more of the week teaching and less of it chasing a spreadsheet.
This is you if
- You're the parent who volunteered for something small and became the de facto administrator.
- Classes meet on a fixed weekly schedule in whatever room you could get, not five days a week in a building you own.
- Money moves as membership dues, a semester fee, and per-class materials fees, tracked in a spreadsheet and collected over Venmo.
- Families join because they know someone, not because they went through an admissions process.
- Teaching is mostly parents swapping labor: you teach a class, your kid gets several, sometimes alongside a hired specialist for one subject.
What NavEd does for you
Rosters, who's teaching what, and who showed up
In a co-op the teacher changes every hour, so the roster question is really who is teaching what this term. Each class carries its own roster and its own teaching parent, that parent marks their own class, and you see all of it without asking four people to text you a photo of a sign-in sheet. Attendance records track per student, per day your co-op actually meets, so a two-day schedule works the same as a five-day one.
Fees, collected in one place
Whatever fee model your co-op already uses, membership dues, a semester fee, per-class materials fees, or a mix, you can collect it through a form with a built-in payment field instead of a string of Venmo requests and a "who paid?" spreadsheet. For a recurring fee schedule across a full year, a tuition plan bills a set number of installments with a manual per-household override on the total. What it will not do is work a teaching parent's hours off that total for you. NavEd organizes the fees your co-op already decided on. It doesn't decide what's fair for you.
Bylaws, waivers, and a real signature
Store your co-op's bylaws, handbook, and policies where every family can actually find them, and collect a real signature on a liability waiver or membership agreement, a typed legal name against the agreement, not a checkbox. No more paper form nobody can find in June.
Records that hold up when someone asks
Attendance and transcripts stay accurate as the year goes, and grade changes correct a transcript automatically rather than requiring you to redo it by hand. That matters when a family needs proof of attendance or a transcript for an ESA program or a school they're transferring into.
What is still manual
- Turning a parent's teaching hours into an automatic fee credit or discount. That loop isn't built. If your co-op discounts fees for teaching, you're still tracking and applying that by hand.
- State-specific homeschool compliance paperwork: affidavits, ESA reporting forms, umbrella-school enrollment forms. NavEd stores and organizes your records; it doesn't generate a state's specific form.
- Catching a double-booked room. Class schedules record a meeting time and a capacity, but nothing flags it if two classes get signed up for the same room at the same time.
- Sign-off through an umbrella or cover school. If your co-op sits under an umbrella school and that school's administrator has to be the one signing transcripts, not the parent, check with NavEd before counting on the current transcript workflow to match your setup.
- Incorporating as a nonprofit or drafting bylaws from scratch. NavEd stores what you already have; it isn't legal or accounting advice.
Getting started
- Sign up. The first five students are free on every plan, no card required, and that stays true even if your co-op grows.
- Add your families and students to build your roster.
- Set up your class schedule and, if you charge for classes, add the fees you already use as a form with a payment field, or set up a yearly tuition plan if your co-op bills that way.
- Upload your bylaws, handbook, and any waiver you need signed, and send it out for families to sign.
- Start taking attendance on your actual meeting days. Records and transcripts build themselves as the year goes.
Curious what it costs as you grow past five students? Check the pricing calculator. Keeping records, issuing a transcript, taking attendance, enrolling a student, and exporting your own data out are never behind a paywall, on any plan.
Questions Homeschool co-ops ask
We're not a real school, just six families who take turns teaching. Is this still for us?
Yes. NavEd doesn't require a building, a payroll, or an admissions process. If your co-op has a coordinator, a roster, and classes that meet on a schedule, that's enough.
We charge different families different amounts depending on who's teaching. Can NavEd handle that?
You can set fees per class or per family through Forms and collect them there instead of over Venmo. NavEd doesn't yet turn teaching hours into an automatic fee discount, so if your fees still depend on a manual credit for a teaching parent, that part stays a conversation between you and that family.
Do we need a lawyer to use the bylaws and waiver storage?
No. NavEd stores the documents you already have or write and lets families sign them with a real typed legal-name signature. It doesn't draft bylaws or a liability waiver for you, and it isn't legal advice.
Our co-op meets two days a week, not five. Will attendance even make sense?
Yes. Attendance records are per student, per day your co-op actually meets, not built around a five-day school week. Two meeting days just means fewer records, not a broken fit.
If our co-op is under an umbrella or cover school, does NavEd know who signs off on a transcript?
NavEd's transcript and signature tools are built around one school's own admin signing off. If your umbrella school is the one that has to sign, check with us before you count on that workflow as-is.
What it costs
The first five students are free on every plan, no trial and no expiration. Keeping records, issuing a transcript, taking attendance, enrolling a student, and getting your own data back out are never behind a paywall. See the full pricing calculator.