When setting up a home schooling curriculum, how much information and attendance you have to send out depends on your state. There are four types of state regulations for a home schooling program; no notice, low regulation, moderate regulation, and high regulation. The larger the state is the more options parents have to choose from for setting up their program.
States requiring no notice Some of the states that require no notice for your home schooling curriculum whatsoever include Texas, Oklahoma and Illinois. There are 11 states total that do not require any notification. What this means is that the parents do not have to send to the government or local school any records of testing, attendance, or any sort of recordkeeping according to homework scores. States with Low Regulation States in this section include Arizona, California, Kentucky and 10 others as well. There are four options one can go about in California including qualifying as a private school, using a private tutor, enrolling in an independent study program through the public school, and enrolling in a private school satellite program.
All four of these options require that you have a teaching certification or are qualified to teach. The rest of the regulations go according to the program, such as attendance and recordkeeping. Options one and two do NOT require that you send in testing, whereas options three and four DO require that you send tests in.
States with Moderate Regulation The closer you attempt to keep your home schooling curriculum between you and your child, the more recordkeeping you must make. For instance, in Colorado to establish and operate a home school you must take attendance 172 days a year for four hours a day, maintain test and evaluation results and immunization records, and administer a standardized test for grades 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11. If you choose to use a private tutor, there is no attendance, record keeping, or test scores that must be distributed anywhere for the home schooling curriculum. There are 20 states total that are in the moderate regulation zone.
States with High Regulation When setting up a home schooling program in this category, there are a lot of restrictions and qualifications. There are a total of six states that fall into this category including North Dakota, New York, and Vermont. In New York, attendance must be taken and be equivalent to 180 days per year at 900 hours for grades 1-6 and 990 hours per year for 7-12.
Things that must be filed and recorded to the local superintendent include attendance, quarterly reports listing the number of hours instructed during the quarter, description of material covered, and a grade for each subject. Grades 4-8 must have a standardized test every other year and grades 9-12 every year with the child scoring above the 33rd percentile.
Jeff Schuman invites you to visit his homeschooling information website for the parents guide to running a successful homeschooling program. http://www.homeschooling-information.com/
