Getting started homeschooling in Washington

CurriculumQuiz checked the linked government or statute page on 2026-10-17. The six notes are notice, subjects, days or hours, assessment, teacher qualifications, and records. A curriculum website can help you choose books. It is not the statute. When this page and a blog disagree, the linked official page wins. If that page is silent, the answer here stays unknown.

Rules change. A summary can be wrong, incomplete, or out of date. Confirm the linked page, and contact that agency or a qualified attorney about your own facts. Save a copy of the page or the form it names, with the date you read it.

1. Open the official source

The recorded source for Washington is Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Read it yourself before you buy a curriculum or file a form.

2. Notice or registration

Each parent whose child receives home-based instruction files annually a signed declaration of intent. It includes the child's name and age, says whether a certificated person will supervise, and is filed by September 15, or within two weeks of the start of a public-school quarter, trimester, or semester, with the district superintendent. The OSPI page states the same annual declaration duty.

If that note does not name a form, a deadline, or an office, the source we read did not give us one. Check official source before you mail or upload anything.

3. Subjects

RCW 28A.225.010(4) says home-based instruction is planned and supervised instructional and related educational activities, including a curriculum and instruction in the basic skills of occupational education, science, mathematics, language, social studies, history, health, reading, writing, spelling, and the development of an appreciation of art and music.

A curriculum that lists those words is not, by itself, proof that a legal duty is met. Match your plan to the sentence above. Ask the agency when the sentence says the list was not stated.

4. Days and hours

The same subsection says those activities are provided for a number of hours equivalent to the total annual program hours per grade level established for approved private schools under RCW 28A.195.010 and 28A.195.040. The hour numbers in those private-school sections were not the pages we opened.

Do not borrow a day count from another state. If this note does not state a number, we do not invent one.

5. Assessment

RCW 28A.200.010 requires that a standardized achievement test approved by the state board of education be given annually by a qualified individual, or that an annual assessment of academic progress be written by a certificated person currently working in education. The test or assessment becomes part of the child's permanent records. If the child is not making reasonable progress, the parent makes a good-faith effort to remedy the deficiency.

A test that comes with a curriculum is not the same thing as a test an agency requires. Use the sentence above.

6. Teacher qualifications

RCW 28A.225.010(4) allows three paths: a parent instructing only that parent's child and supervised by a certificated person, with an average of one contact hour per week; a parent instructing only that parent's child who has earned 45 college quarter credits or the semester equivalent, or who has completed a course in home-based instruction at a postsecondary institution or a vocational-technical institute; or a parent the local superintendent deems sufficiently qualified.

A college degree, a teaching certificate, and a high-school diploma are different things. Record only what this sentence names. If it names nothing, check official source.

7. Records

RCW 28A.200.010 says the parent ensures that test scores or annual academic progress assessments and immunization records, together with any other records kept about the instruction, are forwarded to any other public or private school to which the child transfers. The annual test or written assessment is part of the child's permanent records.

Online schools in this directory often keep a grade file. Print curricula usually leave the file with the parent. That describes the product. It is not a ruling that either one satisfies Washington. Keep what the sentence names.

Withdrawing from public school

The text recorded from the official source does not describe withdrawing from public school. This page does not add a withdrawal rule. Ask the school the child attends, and check official source.

If you are leaving a public school, ask that school what it needs in order to drop the student from its roll. A district can have a local form that the state page does not quote. This page will not supply one.

After the official page, then a curriculum

The quiz ranks programs from grade, style, time, budget, faith, accreditation, and pace. It does not read the Washington statute, and the state does not change the match percentage. It adds a link back to the state page. The quiz runs in the browser. Quiz answers are never stored or sent. The site uses Google Analytics, which sets cookies, for anonymous usage stats. It does not ask for a child's name.

Style guides on this site list programs by tags and grade spans that are already in the directory. They are not legal checklists: Charlotte Mason, classical, secular, free, and kindergarten.

Come back to the official URL when the school year turns over. If the agency page changed, write to hello-curriculumquiz@agentmail.to and we will re-check the source before we change this summary. You can also embed the short fact box from the state page.