Meeting Your State’s Legal Requirements

One of the first things a home educator needs to do is meet their state’s legal requirements for homeschooling. These requirements vary substantially from state to state. Many states have homeschool statutes that mandate things like annual notification, required subjects, and academic assessments. These requirements are designed to ensure that children who are homeschooled receive a good education, and have other needs met as well. Other states have few to no requirements. Some states do not have homeschool statutes; in these states, parents typically homeschool under statutes designed to govern private schools. 

At CRHE, we encourage homeschool educators to view their state’s requirements as positive safeguards designed to help them stay on track. In addition, we believe home educators should hold themselves to a high standard even if their state’s requirements are minimal. For this reason, we have created a set of standard recommendations for all home educators, which we will cover below. 

Learning Your State’s Requirements

You can find an overview of your state’s homeschool requirements at the links below. 

In some cases, there may be disagreement over the interpretation of statutes governing homeschooling. For this reason, our state pages include links to the statutes themselves. Because these agencies are responsible for implementing the law, you should visit your state department of education or school district’s website to learn how they interpret your state’s requirements. Where possible, we link to these pages as well. 

You may find it helpful to make a list of your state’s requirements, as well as dates when various materials or paperwork is due. Keeping careful records is important! 

As you work to meet your state’s homeschool requirements, always try to maintain a good relationship with your local school district. There are many positive side effects of maintaining a positive working relationship with your local school district: 

• If your school district makes resources available to local homeschooling families (such as athletics, extracurriculars, or even resource rooms with materials that can be checked out), you will be aware of what is available. 
• If you need to enroll your child in public school at some later date, you will already have a positive relationship to build on. 
• If questions arise about your homeschool, your child’s wellbeing, or whether you are meeting your state’s legal requirements for homeschooling, your local school officials will already be familiar with you and your family. 

Remember, your local school district is staffed by people just like you. In some cases they may have positive views of homeschooling; in other cases they may be more critical. Either way, following your state’s requirements carefully and being willing to answer questions will help ensure that staff at your local school district have a positive view of you, your child, and your homeschool. It may also make them more willing to make resources available to you, or to be otherwise helpful to your family. 

CRHE’s Recommendations

CRHE has a set of recommendations that we advise all parents to meet voluntarily whether their state requires them to or not. Your child has a positive right to a quality education. In fact, this may be why you are homeschooling! Our recommendations are designed to help you ensure that your child receives this education. 

At CRHE, we hear from many formerly homeschooled individuals who received a deficient education. These individuals report that their parents were disorganized, overwhelmed, or too preoccupied with other things to homeschool effectively. Lack of organization comes up as a common theme. Our recommendations are designed to help you avoid these pitfalls and provide your child with a quality education. 

We advise all home educators to follow these recommendations, even when living in a state with minimal legal oversight. Following these recommendations will help you ensure that your child receives a good education. The record keeping and best practices in these recommendations will also prepare you to answer questions about the education you are providing your child, should questions arise.  

Do I need membership in a homeschool protection agency? 

No. Homeschooling is legal in all fifty states. While some homeschool leaders may tell you that you need legal insurance when you homeschool, this is an unnecessary expense. In addition, a number of homeschool graduates have told us that lawyers provided by homeschool legal insurance groups impeded child abuse investigations involving their families and left them in abusive situations when they needed help.

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