Your First Year of Homeschooling, a Practical Playbook for Parents

The scariest part of homeschooling is the week before you start. You have a kitchen table, a child, a stack of catalogs that all promise to be "complete," and a quiet voice asking whether you are qualified. The honest answer, and I say this as encouragement: millions of ordinary parents have done it, you are allowed to be bad at it for a month, and every one of the decisions in front of you can be made in order.

Order is the whole secret. Families who panic usually panic because they are making six decisions at once. This is a playbook that puts them in a line. It is general information, not legal advice about your own family, and the single most important rule in it comes first: the law that governs you is your state's, so read it before you act.

Why you are allowed to do this

A sentence of background, because it will steady you. Homeschooling is legal in all fifty states, a status it reached by the early 1990s after a long run of court cases and legislative fights, as we tell in Homeschooling Went From Legal Gray Zone to Legal in Fifty States by 1993. The principle underneath is older than any statute: parents, not the state, hold the first responsibility for a child's education. The Supreme Court said so in Pierce v. Society of Sisters in 1925, when it struck down an Oregon law that required nearly every child to attend public school, a story told in The 1922 Oregon Law That Tried to Abolish Private Schools, and Lost. What a state may do is set conditions. Those conditions are what the first steps below are about.

Step 1: Find your state's legal category

States do not treat homeschooling alike. Broadly, they fall into a few families of rules, and you need to know which family yours is in before you do anything else.

1. Notice states. You file a short notice or declaration that you intend to teach at home, usually with the local school district or the state, and then teach. The state asks little beyond that.
2. Portfolio or assessment states. You keep a portfolio of the child's work and have it reviewed or evaluated by a certified teacher or another approved person at the end of the year.
3. Testing states. You give your child a standardized test on a schedule and report the results, or a result that meets a threshold.
4. Umbrella or cover-school options. In some states a family may enroll in a private school or an umbrella organization that supplies the legal home, keeps the paperwork and may offer a transcript, while the family does the teaching.
5. Heavier-regulation states. A few states add requirements such as approval of a curriculum, parent qualifications, subject lists, hours or home visits.

I am not going to tell you which state is which, because the rules change with each legislative session and a wrong summary from me could cost you. Here is how to find out. Go to your state department of education's website and search "home instruction" or "home education." Then confirm it on your state legislature's website, where the statute lives. Many states also have a statewide homeschool association that explains the law in plain English. And a call to a local, experienced homeschooling family is worth an hour of searching.

Write down three things: what you must file, by what date, and with whom.

Step 2: Withdraw properly if your child is enrolled

If your child is currently in a public or private school, do not simply stop sending them. In many states, unexcused absences begin a truancy process, and a school that thinks a child has vanished may call someone.

The usual sequence is this:

1. Read the section of your state's law on withdrawal and notice, which you found in Step 1.
2. Write a short, polite letter of withdrawal and notice, dated and signed, saying that you are withdrawing the child and will provide instruction at home. Include whatever your state requires, which may be nothing more than the child's name and the effective date.
3. Deliver it in a way that leaves a record: by hand with a copy stamped, by email with a read receipt, or by certified mail.
4. Ask the school for the child's records, including the cumulative file, immunization records if the school holds them, and the most recent report card or test scores. You will want them for the portfolio and for the transcript later. If the school is slow, our guide to How to Request Records From Your School District and Actually Get Them explains the process.
5. Return school property: textbooks, laptops, library books.

Do not announce your reasons in the letter. You do not owe the school a justification unless your state's law requires one. Be courteous, keep copies, and keep the tone boring. Boring is excellent.

Step 3: Choose a curriculum approach, not a product

Parents look at a catalog and ask "which curriculum should I buy?" That is the wrong first question. The right first question is: what approach suits this child and this household?

• Packaged or boxed curriculum. Everything arrives together, with schedules, lesson plans and often grading. Best for a parent who wants structure and is nervous about gaps.
• Classical. Built on the old pattern of learning facts when young, logic in the middle years and rhetoric in the teens, which we explain in The Trivium Explained, Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric for a Modern Child.
• Charlotte Mason style. Short lessons, living books, nature study and narration, with a strong emphasis on reading real books and not summaries.
• Unit studies. A single topic such as the American Revolution is used to teach history, reading, writing and some math together.
• Online or virtual schooling. A teacher on a screen and a program that tracks progress. Check whether it counts as homeschooling or public virtual school under your state's law, because the legal status differs.
• Eclectic. Different subjects from different sources. Most experienced families end up here after a year or two.

A practical rule: buy the core subjects first, which means reading, writing and math, and make the rest from the library. Resist the urge to purchase a full set of every subject in August. A curriculum that is wrong for your child will be obvious by October, and the money you did not spend is money you can redirect.

On reading, in particular, use a program that teaches systematic phonics for beginners. You can check any program against the questions in Is Your Child Being Taught to Read With Phonics? A Parent's Checklist.

Step 4: Set a schedule that fits a household, not a school

One of the surprises is how little time it takes. A school day includes passing periods, lunch lines, roll call, assemblies and managing thirty children. One-on-one or small-group teaching at home often needs far fewer hours of actual instruction. A young child may be done in two or three hours. Older children need more.

Build your first schedule in three layers:

1. Anchor the morning. Do the hardest subjects, usually math and writing, first, when everyone is fresh.
2. Make a weekly rhythm. Science on Tuesdays and Thursdays, a library trip on Wednesday, a field trip on Friday. A rhythm lets the family plan.
3. Leave margin. Plan four days of instruction and leave a fifth for catching up. You will use it.

Check whether your state requires a minimum number of days or hours. Some do and some do not. If yours does, plan around it from the first day and count the days as you go.

And forgive yourself in advance. The first month will be uneven. Children who have been in school may need a few weeks to unwind, and parents need that time as well. Experienced homeschooling families sometimes call it "deschooling," a period of reduced structure while everyone adjusts. It is not wasted time.

Step 5: Keep records from day one

Whatever your state requires, keep records. They protect you, they serve your child and they cost nothing.

Keep a simple binder or a folder on your computer with:

• An attendance log. A calendar on which you mark each day of instruction. If your state requires a number of days, this is your proof.
• A subject log. A list of what you studied each week: the chapters, the books read, the projects done.
• Work samples. One or two pieces per subject per month: a writing sample, a math test, a photo of a science project. Date each one.
• A reading list. Every book the child finishes, with the date.
• Copies of everything you file with the state or district, and the proof of delivery.

Do this weekly, not at the end of the year. Five minutes on a Friday saves a frantic weekend in June. If your state requires a portfolio review, this is the portfolio. If it does not, these records are still the best answer to any question that might arise later, and they become the raw material for a high school transcript.

Step 6: Find your people, including a co-op

Parents worry about "socialization," and it is worth taking the concern seriously, if only so you can dispose of it. The claim that homeschooled children are isolated does not survive a look at the record, as we show in Seven Myths About Homeschooled Kids, From Socialization to College. But it does contain one truth: a child needs other children and a parent needs other parents.

Look for these:

• A co-op. A group of homeschooling families that meets weekly, where parents or hired instructors teach classes in turn. Co-ops often offer what is hard to do alone: lab science, a foreign language, choir, drama, a debate club. Some are faith-based and some are secular, so visit before you join.
• Sports and activities. Many communities have homeschool leagues, 4-H clubs, scouting groups, park programs and church youth groups. Some states allow homeschooled students to take part in public school sports or classes; others do not, so check the law.
• A mentor family. Find one that is two or three years ahead of you. Their advice is worth more than any catalog.
• Your library. The best free resource you have. Many libraries have homeschool programs and shelves of useful books.

If your family wants to be part of a small school-like community, consider the newer option of a microschool, described in Microschools Are the One-Room Schoolhouse Reborn, With Modern Rules.

Step 7: Plan testing and evaluation

Some states require testing or evaluation; some do not. If yours does, put the date on the calendar at the start of the year, not at the end.

Even if your state does not require testing, consider doing it. Not because the test is the child's worth, but because it is a cheap, independent check on your own teaching. A test result shows you gaps while there is still time to fill them. A child who reads well but is weak in fractions is a perfectly ordinary child, and the earlier you learn it the easier the fix.

The options generally are:

1. A nationally normed standardized achievement test that a parent or an approved proctor may administer, depending on the state.
2. A portfolio evaluation by a certified teacher or other qualified evaluator.
3. A state test, where a state offers one to homeschoolers.

Whatever you choose, learn the deadline and what counts as a passing result in your state. Do not rely on a summary; read the statute or the department's published guidance.

Step 8: Think about transcripts before high school

High school is the stage that scares parents most, and it is the stage where records matter most. Colleges and employers will want a transcript, and a parent-made transcript is accepted at many institutions, though the details vary. You do not need to solve this in year one, but you should know where the road leads.

A transcript is a record of courses, grades and credits. In outline:

1. Start tracking in ninth grade, or earlier. List each course, the year taken, the materials used and the grade you award.
2. Define a credit. A common convention is that a full-year course of about 120 to 180 hours equals one credit, but check what your state or your target colleges use.
3. Keep course descriptions. A paragraph per course, with the books used and the topics covered, helps a college understand what the course was.
4. Consider outside validation. Dual enrollment at a community college, an online course with a grade from a provider or a standardized exam can give a skeptical admissions office independent evidence. We explain two of those routes in Cut a Year Off College Before Graduation With Dual Enrollment and CLEP.
5. Ask the colleges. Colleges publish their homeschool admissions policies. Look at what the schools your child might attend actually require, and build backward.

If your child is in the early grades, none of this is urgent, but keeping the habit of records now means you will not scramble later.

Common first-year mistakes

A short list, drawn from the pattern of what goes wrong:

• Buying too much. A closet full of unused curriculum is the most common mistake. Buy the core and add as you learn.
• Recreating school at home. You are not obliged to have bells, desks or seven-hour days. The point of a small classroom is that you can move faster and go deeper.
• Comparing to the family down the road. A child who is slow at fractions is not slow at everything, and a family with a spotless co-op schedule has bad days too.
• Skipping the legal steps. A missed filing is easy to fix in week one and harder in month nine.
• Going it alone. Isolation is the thing that burns out parents. Find the co-op, the mentor and the library.

A note on why this is a good thing to do

I would be leaving something out if I treated this only as logistics. The deepest reason many families homeschool is that they believe the family is the first school, the place where a child learns what is true, what is good and what is owed to others. The family came before the state, and a free society lets the family keep its role. If you want the broader argument, see the family came before the state, so why does the state act like a parent?. A first-year plan is just that principle with a calendar attached.

The case in brief

1. Homeschooling is legal in all fifty states, but the rules differ: find out whether yours is a notice, portfolio, testing or umbrella-school state before you begin.
2. Withdraw properly and in writing, keep copies and ask for the child's records.
3. Choose an approach first and buy the core subjects only; build a schedule that fits a household and leaves margin.
4. Keep an attendance log, a subject log and dated work samples from day one, and schedule any required testing early.
5. Find a co-op and a mentor family, and start thinking about high school transcripts and outside validation before ninth grade.

What you can do: Open your state department of education's page on home instruction today, write down what you must file, by what date and with whom, and put that date on the family calendar.