Policy Recommendations

We believe in promoting healthy and cooperative relationships between homeschool families and their local public schools. We recommend allowing homeschooled students to enroll part-time in their local public schools and to participate in extracurriculars, including sports; expanding public school extension programs, which are sometimes called correspondence or independent study programs and often increase the resources available to both the schools and the students. Numerous states, such as Alaska, Florida, and Iowa, currently provide homeschooled students access to both educational resources and public school curricular and extracurricular activities. We encourage public school administrators to draw on existing and future research on formerly homeschooled students’ transition to public school, and to develop policies to help students successfully manage this change and create credit-awarding policies that take into account the flexible and varied nature of homeschooling.

We recommend that services provided to homeschooled students be taken into account when determining a public school district’s funding allotment. We similarly recommend that oversight of homeschooling should be provided with the support of state education funding. While we understand that local school districts are often underfunded and juggling many priorities as it is, we believe that ensuring the education of homeschooled students is worth the investment, and that states should provide funding for public school districts to carry out their mandates.

We recommend barring from homeschooling parents convicted of child abuse, sexual offenses, or other crimes that would disqualify them from employment as a school teacher. This provision is currently in place in Pennsylvania. We also recommend creating a process for flagging at-risk children, such as those in families with a troubling history of child protective services involvement, for intervention or additional monitoring. Finally, we recommend that the annual assessment requirement be conducted by mandatory reporters such as certified teachers; these individuals should be trained in how to recognize signs of abuse and how to report suspicions of maltreatment.

We recommend requiring parents to provide annual notification of their intent to homeschool. This notice should include at a minimum children’s names, ages, and grade levels, as well as the names of the parents and the family’s address. Wisconsin requires that this notice be filed with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction while Florida requires it to be filed with the local superintendent; either is acceptable. We recommend that local school districts and state departments of education communicate to ensure that no homeschooled student goes unaccounted for. In the cases of umbrella schools, notification may be fulfilled through enrollment. Umbrella schools should be required to notify state or local officials of the enrolled homeschooled students, as is currently required in states such as Maryland and South Carolina.

Because homeschool parents may teach students of any grade level and cannot be expected to be capable of teaching at a grade level above that which they themselves have completed, we recommend that the parent providing primary instruction be required to have at least a high school diploma or GED. Completing a secondary education also ensures that the parents values education in their own lives. In cases where a parent does not have this qualification, homeschooling may be permitted under the supervision of a certified teacher or other similarly qualified individual indefinitely or until a GED is obtained. States like Ohio, Washington, and North Dakota currently have similar parent qualification requirements. We also recommend barring from homeschooling parents who have been convicted of child abuse, sexual offenses, or other crimes that would disqualify them from employment as a school teacher. This provision is currently in place in Pennsylvania.

We recommend requiring parents to provide instruction (or facilitate learning) in the same range of subjects (e.g. English, math, science, history, etc.) taught in public schools in the state in which they live. This provision is currently in place in states such as California and North Dakota. We recommend requiring this instruction to be sequential and commensurate with students’ ability, as is required in states like Wisconsin and Florida. Because homeschooling allows for positive flexibility and child-led learning, we oppose requiring students to be at grade level in each subject. We recommend clear requirements regarding what instruction must be provided (or what learning must be facilitated) at the high school level (e.g. biology, chemistry, algebra, etc.). We recognize that homeschoolers may take a nontraditional approach to fulfilling certain requirements, and therefore recommend that oversight be more concerned with learning taking place in each subject area than with how that learning is imparted.

We recommend requiring parents to maintain a basic record of their students’ academic progress. These records allow parents to demonstrate that they are educating their children should any question arise; are indispensable when creating students’ high school diplomas down the road; and assist in children’s placement should they be enrolled in public school. The materials contained in each child’s academic record should vary, but may include such items as reading lists, worksheets, writing samples and creative materials, outlines of subjects covered and curriculum used, and each year’s assessment. This requirement is currently in place in states such as Missouri, Maryland, and Georgia. We recommend that a copy of each student’s annual assessment, whether that be a standardized test or a portfolio review, be confidentially maintained and kept on file by either the local school district or the state department of education. We recommend this because there have been numerous cases where homeschool parents have withheld diplomas, transcripts, or other documentation of education provided in an attempt to control their children, and even in situations where parents would not withhold such documentation, it can be easy for records to be misplaced, thrown out, or accidentally destroyed. Students’ records should be maintained confidentially and made available upon request. This is currently required in North Dakota. We recommend that local school districts or state departments of education require and keep on file information such as proof of age, proof of residency, and proof of immunization or exemption in the same way they would for any other student. Arizona, Louisiana, Nebraska, and North Dakota currently have such documentation requirements. In states that allow for “umbrella” schools, these records may be maintained by the umbrella school. Any and all of this information should be available to both the parents and the homeschooled student upon request.

We recommend annual academic assessments that take into account the flexible and innovative nature of homeschooling. That students are learning and making academic progress in keeping with their ability should be more important than whether they are studying the same content as their age cohort in each subject. We recommend giving parents choice in the type of assessment by allowing them to choose between options such as standardized testing and portfolio reviews. Finally, we recommend intervention for students in need of specialized attention. North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, and Pennsylvania, among other states, currently have assessment requirements and offer intervention.