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Our family has been educating at home for the past five years, starting our journey of homeschooling in Virginia.
It has been a wild ride, but I wouldn’t trade these days with my kiddos for anything.
Not even for hot coffee, a clean house, or a few uninterrupted moments to myself. Well… maybe that last one;)
But… I was daunted when I started. Trying to sift through the details of how to homeschool legally and realizing that every state had different laws on the subject. It was overwhelming. Especially, because we have moved several times and are currently roadschooling. Luckily, the states we’ve lived in, Virginia and Texas, have had, what I consider, easy rules for homeschoolers.
This post is a guide detailing how to start homeschooling in Virginia. I literally wrote down every step of the process I took to legally homeschool in Virginia. And, all of the resources I found during my research that first year of homeschooling. It is what I wish I had had when I was starting out.
*Disclaimer* In this article, I aim to share my experiences and how I navigated homeschooling in Virginia. But, there is a lot to know so please make sure you do your own research on the topic of homeschooling in Virginia. That being said, I hope that the resources I’ve listed help someone else feel more confident in taking those first steps of getting started on their homeschooling journey in the state of Virginia.
Homeschooling in Virginia
Virginia’s homeschool laws were very overwhelming to me when I first started looking into homeschooling. I don’t know if it was that I had never looked at any of these things before or because Virginia does at first glance seem to have a lot of rules. Once I understood the laws I found Virginia to be a very homeschool friendly state. I’m going to break it down for you so you know where to go and what to do to get started.
There are 3 options to choose from to legally homeschool in VA
Home Instruction – Option 1:
Meet at least one of these four criteria:
- Have a high school diploma
- Be a certified teacher
- Provide an online or distance learning program, with evidence of enrollment.
- Or, if you don’t meet the above requirements you must provide proof that you are adequately able to provide instruction
Besides this, each year you must:
- file an annual Notice of Intent to Homeschool or NOI
The state does not require that you use any certain form to provide this information to your school district, but I found it easier to use a form that already had all the information on it. This must be filed by August 15th each year. If you start homeschooling in the middle of the year then you are supposed to file as soon as possible or within 30 days to get all the information to your school district.
We went the route of bringing in a diploma. If you have a college degree you just need to bring that once. After they have it on file, you don’t need to do it again. Also, it doesn’t have to be your diploma either, even if you will be the primary parent who’s homeschooling. As long as they have a diploma from a parent in the home, you’re good.
This NOI form also has a link to VA’s school divisions and contact information for you to submit your paperwork, which is very helpful when trying to figure out who to bring your paperwork to. I believe you can send it all in, but we always did it face to face to ensure that it got where it needed to go.
Submit a description of the curriculum, limited to a list of subjects
This is not as scary as it sounds. I literally wrote out a list of subjects we would study over the year on a piece of notebook paper. And, that was all. You do not need to provide specific books or curriculum you will use to teach the subject. Also, it is important to know that Virginia law does not specify what subjects you must teach, so you don’t have to worry about leaving something off the list. An example list would look something like this:
- Math
- Writing
- Spelling
- Reading
- Science
- American History – Colonial America
- World History
- Geography
- Piano
- Foreign Language – French
You do not have to add in the specifics like I did above for American History specifying Colonial America, that’s just how I did it. It’s perfectly okay to just say history. I put my child’s name and the school year at the top and I was done. If you change something during the year you don’t have to notify anyone just make your changes and move on. Easy peasy. Here is a link to a Q&A on VA’s Curriculum Description needs.
- Submit annual evidence of progress
At the end of the school year, it is a requirement to provide evidence that your child has made progress in their education. You can use any nationally normed test. We did ours online at home, (see more about this further down in the post). Or, you can provide evidence through assessment such as a portfolio review.
The problem I have with the portfolio review assessment option is that it can put you in some gray areas. There are no specifics that spell out exactly what your superintendent can require as evidence of progress. I like the idea of testing and knowing what to expect up front.
- Comply with vaccination requirements
By law, homeschoolers must meet the same vaccination requirements as children in public school. However, whether or not to vaccinate your child is a personal issue and Virginia does provide exemptions that you can read more about in this article from the Home Educators Association of Virginia. There is no formal expectation for you to provide proof of vaccination and I was never asked for it. But, unless you qualify for one of the exemptions it is something you could be asked to provide.
- Other Notable Information
One other note that is important for those looking to start homeschooling in Virginia is that you may take your child out of school at any time to homeschool. You do not need permission to homeschool and the county cannot tell you can’t. It may be easier for you to have all the paperwork done before you remove your child from public school, but the state doesn’t require you to provide the school itself with anything, only the school division. And though the school division may send you an approval letter or some confirmation of approval after you submit your NOI and list of subjects, you don’t legally need their approval.
Here are some links to articles about Requirements for Homeschooling in Virginia:
Home Education Association of Virginia: Virginia Homeschool Laws
Virginia Department of Education Home Instruction Handbook
The Organization of VA Homeschoolers VA Homeschool Laws and Policies
Religious Exemption – Option 2:
Option 2 allows you to homeschool under a religious exemption. If you can prove that your family has a real opposition to attendance in public school for religious reasons than this will excuse your child from school.
Here are some links for more information on this option:
Home Education Association of Virginia: Religious Exemption Demystified
VA Homeschoolers: Religous Exemption from Compulsory Schooling
Approved Tutor – Option 3:
This option allows for education under an approved tutor. Under this provision, parents must provide their superintendent with documentation of the tutor’s valid Virginia teaching license and must update that documentation when the teaching license expires. The tutor may be a parent or can be someone chosen by the parent. If you choose this option, there is no requirement to file an annual notice of intent, a curriculum description, or evidence of progress. However, there are requirements for providing your or your tutor’s teaching certificate.
Further information about VA’s option 3 for homeschooling:
Required Yearly Testing
Virginia requires yearly evidence of progress that we found was most easily accomplished with an online test my son could complete at home.
Testing was the one part of homeschooling in Virginia that negatively affected our home. My son does not do well with seat work of any kind. So, multi-subject tests, even the abbreviated versions, were excruciating for him. And, I felt, not a true test of his intelligence or progress. Even though he was able to successfully get through them it was a painful process for both of us requiring lots of anxiety-relieving activities to break up the testing.
Thankfully, the testing we chose was not timed so that we could allow for brain breaks, time for running around the house, or whatever else my son needed to be able to get through them.
When we tested in Virginia we used Seton Testing and found it to be affordable and simple to administer at home. They also had great customer service on the few occasions I spoke with them over the phone.
Utilizing Virginia SOLS
Before common core, Virginia had done extensive work on setting up a statewide set of standards for their educators. The SOLS or Standards of Learning are expectations for student learning and achievement in the state of Virginia. And while Virginia doesn’t require homeschoolers to follow these standards, it can be an invaluable resource, especially if you put your own curriculum together each year like I do. And, even if you don’t put your curriculum together from scratch it provides an excellent guide to what your child is expected to know at each grade level. I used their resources many times to get a general idea of learning expectations and also as a guide to planning my curriculum each school year. And, because Virginia doesn’t require you to follow any specific curriculum you are free to use this resource as much or as little as you need.
Links to Virginia SOLS
Here are links to the SOLS within the Virginia Department of Education’s website:
Virginia SOLS General Home Page
Standards of Learning Main Page
To get started go to the Standards of Learning Main Page to access the menu of subjects on the right-hand sidebar. This menu lists subjects such as math, science, history etc. From here, click on whichever subject you want to look at.
Here’s a step-by-step example:
Say you are looking for what math concepts to teach your kindergartener.
- Go to the mathematics link in the right sidebar from the SOL Main Page.
- Then, scroll down the page to the Standards of Learning Documents for Mathematics. The first column, all the way to the left-hand side, is a list of grades.
- Moving right along the kindergarten row you will find a hyperlink to a word document or PDF, the first an easy to read list of standards and the second a more intensive and explanatory Curriculum framework.
The site even provides sample lesson plans. Here’s how to find the ones you want:
- Continue to the right of the table to find a link for ESS Sample Lesson Plans this will take you to a list of grade levels.
- Select the one you want and click through to a new table where you can select individual standards by grade level.
- After you have selected the standards you would like, go to the bottom right of that grade’s table and click the ‘Get Lesson Plans’ button
- You should now have a list of lesson plans in PDF format you can print off and use.
I hope that this info is helpful in beginning homeschooling in Virginia.
But, if you’re still feeling overwhelmed and would like more one-on-one help to walk you through the process please contact Heidi@poolnoodlesandpixiedust.com for personalized help in getting started.
I tried to be thorough and include everything, but if I have left out something important or you have first-hand knowledge of one of the options that I don’t, please comment and let me and others reading know. We can all help each other out by sharing our experiences.
Heidi
