How do you homeschool? : Registering and Requirements

• Posted by Gina Grothoff on June 13, 2016 at 5:23pm

Have you made the decision to homeschool?
Maybe you are seriously considering it but wondering what is required?

In this post, I will share the NC requirements and process for registering your homeschool.

NC Homeschooling is governed by NCDNPE, the North Carolina Department of Nonpublic Education.
REQUIREMENTS:
Copied directly from their website:

Parents/guardians residing in North Carolina and desiring, in lieu of conventional school attendance, to home school their children who are at least age 7 but not yet age 16 must:

1. Hold at least a high school diploma or its equivalent.
2. Send to DNPE a Notice of Intent to Operate a Home School. The notice must include the name and address of the school along with the name of the school’s owner and chief administrator.
3. Elect to operate under either Part 1 or Part 2 of Article 39 of the North Carolina General Statutes as a religious or as a non-religious school.
4. Operate the school “on a regular schedule, excluding reasonable holidays and vacations, during at least nine calendar months of the year.”
5. Maintain at the school disease immunization and annual attendance records for each student. (Or religious exemption as allowed by NC law)
6. Have a nationally standardized achievement test administered annually to each student. The test must involve the subject areas of English grammar, reading, spelling, and mathematics. Records of the test results must be retained at the home school for at least one year and made available to DNPE when requested.
7. Notify DNPE when the school is no longer in operation.

To summarize the above:
– Until your child is 7 years old, he/she is not required to go to school and therefore you can NOT register your homeschool until your child is about to turn 7 (or is already, if removing a child from public school).

-Standardized testing is required yearly, so within the first year of opening your homeschool for children ages 7 and older.
To clarify, this is NOT EOG testing. EOG testing is not needed in homeschooling. There are a variety of standardized tests you can use, some you can administer and others you can have someone else administer. For more information on testing:
http://www.charlottehomeschooling.com/testing

– keep a copy of test results on file (there is NO required score and no required place to report the results)
-attendance and immunization (or exemption)

Keep in mind the website also has a list of “recommendations” but they are merely recommendations and not required by law.
I have been a registered homeschool since 2005 and my “attendance record” is just a calendar.

And Filing the Notice of Intent:
http://ncadmin.nc.gov/citizens/home-school/file-intent-operate-home…
You can not file a notice of intent in June (so I can not access the form)
There is a form online to complete.
-You need to show proof that the administrator of your school has at least a high school diploma.
– You name your homeschool and can not go back and change the name later.
– you only need to open your homeschool one time (if you have younger children, you will not need to re-register when they are 7)
-your homeschool remains open until you, the administrator, close it.

When I registered in 2005, this was not done online, and so I filled out a piece of paper that I mailed in. I will update this information in July when the form is available again online.