Legal Requirements

Ed315 (Department of Education Administrative Rules)

RSA 193:1 (Compulsory Attendance Law)

193:1-c Access to Public School Programs by Nonpublic or Home Educated Pupils

Self-Certification of Secondary School Completion

The following information is provided as a courtesy to homeschooling families in New Hampshire and is not intended as legal advice.

Summary of the Legal Requirements for Homeschooling in New Hampshire

Home education in New Hampshire is governed by RSA 193-A, which went into effect on July 1, 1991. Changes have since been made to the original statute, with the most recent updates signed into law on June 2, 2022. Under this law, parents or legal guardians who wish to homeschool their child(ren) are required to:

• • Notify a participating agency (the local district superintendent, Commissioner of Education, or a participating private school) of their intent to homeschool.
  • Keep a portfolio of the homeschooled child’s work.
  • Have an annual evaluation demonstrating educational progress commensurate with the child’s age, ability, and/or disability.
  • Cover the following subjects over the course of the child’s education: science, mathematics, language, government, history, health, reading, writing, spelling, the history of the constitutions of New Hampshire and the United States, and an exposure to and appreciation of art and music.

    These requirements are all explained in more detail below.

You do NOT need to teach a certain number of days or certain hours of the day.
You do NOT need to have your program approved by a school official.
You do NOT need to teach each of the subjects required in the law every year.
You do NOT need to submit your child’s annual evaluation for review.

Notification

The compulsory attendance law (RSA 193:1), and by extension, the home education law (RSA 193-A), applies to those children who are six years of age by September 30 of the school year and under 18 years of age.

When you start homeschooling, you should send in your letter of notification by the time school starts in your district and must notify within 5 days of withdrawing a child from school. If a child is withdrawn from a public school after the school year has started, parents should ensure that officials are aware that the child will be home educated in order to avoid being charged with truancy. You need to put this in writing and keep a copy.

Parents may choose to notify either the resident district superintendent, a nonpublic school principal, or the Commissioner of Education at the New Hampshire Department of Education (DOE). Any parent who previously notified the resident district superintendent of a home education program who moves from said district shall notify the original resident district superintendent.

Most homeschoolers use their local school district as the participating agency. Many nonpublic schools make themselves available to homeschoolers to use as a participating agency. This private school does not need to be in your area, and cannot request more information than what is required by law (see below). However, they may require a fee.

According to RSA 193-A, the letter of notification should include:

• Names, addresses, and dates of birth for all children of compulsory attendance age (6 years of age, by September 30, of the current school year up to 18 years of age) to be homeschooled.
• Names and address of the parents.
• A phone number where the parent can be reached during the day (optional).
• Date on which the homeschooling program will begin.

We have prepared a letter of notification that you can print out and fill in. 

You only need to send in a letter of notification once for each student. It will be assumed that you are continuing to homeschool each year, and you do not need to notify again unless you change participating agencies or move to another school district. Do note that you need to keep your letter of acknowledgment from the participating agency (and maybe an extra copy) in a safe place.

If a child is withdrawn from a public school after the school year has started, parents should ensure that officials are aware that the child will be homeschooling in order to avoid being charged with truancy. You need to put this in writing and keep a copy.

The participating agency is required to acknowledge your notification, in writing, within 14 days, assuming it contains the information listed above. We recommend you send the letter via certified mail, return receipt requested, so you have documentation that shows that you submitted the letter and when. Some school districts take letters via email and that is acceptable. Unfortunately, school offices often get busy, and frequently, they do not send letters of acknowledgment in a timely fashion.

If you decide to end your home education program prior to age 18, written notice should be filed with your participating agency within 15 days of termination of the program.

If your student has finished their high school homeschooling program but is younger than 18, you may certify high school completion with the New Hampshire Department of Education. Send a letter to the Commissioner of Education at the Department of Education. No homeschooling notification or evaluation is required for students enrolled full-time in college (“an accredited post-secondary education program”).

Portfolio

Parents are required to keep a portfolio of the child’s work related to the homeschooling program for at least two years after the instruction is completed. The portfolio is the property of the parents; the superintendent cannot require that you submit it to the district for review.

Your portfolio should include a log of reading materials used, as well as samples of writings, worksheets, workbooks, or materials used or developed by the child. 

If you plan to use the portfolio method for your evaluation, you will want to include enough samples of your child’s work so the evaluator can determine that educational progress has been made. How much is enough? It varies depending on the evaluator, but one or two pages of work in each of the subject areas your child has studied, taken at three different times of the year, is often sufficient to demonstrate progress.

Evaluation

Parents are required to have their child’s educational progress evaluated each year. There is no particular date by which the evaluation must be completed. If your family started homeschooling in the middle of the school year, you would not need to have an evaluation on file until a year from when you started. The child’s progress may be evaluated by any of the following methods:

• Evaluation by a certified teacher, a teacher certified in another state which is a party to the interstate contract, or a teacher currently teaching in a nonpublic school; (See our list of Evaluators. For a list of states (signatories) in the interstate contract with New Hampshire, go to https://www.nasdtec.net/page/Interstate; the link is at the bottom of the page.
• National student achievement test, administered by a person who meets the qualifications established by the provider or publisher of the test, OR a state student assessment test used by the resident school district. (See our list of available tests.) A composite score on either test at or above the 40th percentile is no longer required.
• Any other valid measurement tool mutually agreed upon by the parent and the Commissioner of Education, resident district superintendent, or nonpublic school principal. This could be an agreement to accept grades from an online school program, to have a meeting with a teacher or principal, or to have the child take assessment tests at the school, among other options.  If you choose to have your child take the assessment test, you need to contact the district early in the year to ascertain the testing registration deadline.

The results of the evaluation, typically no more than one or two pages, do NOT need to be submitted to the participating agency.

You will be keeping this evaluation on file in case there is a question about your homeschooling program. The child only needs to demonstrate educational progress at a level commensurate with the child’s age, ability, and/or disability. In the case of portfolio evaluation, the evaluation is not considered complete unless it has a parent’s signature, so if you feel your child’s evaluation is not accurate, do not sign it. We have posted more information on compiling a Homeschool Portfolio and a Portfolio Evaluation Form that an evaluator can use if they would like.

Conclusion

It is very important that homeschooling families become thoroughly familiar with the requirements of the law, and that they not submit to any requests other than those required by law. Even if your family doesn’t mind complying with requests for information that are beyond the scope of the law, your doing so may make things more difficult for the other homeschooling families (who may have different opinions about what is “reasonable” than you do).