I’ve made many posts at this point on what is required to educate your children at home in the state of Pennsylvania according to the law passed by the PA General Assembly and signed by Gov. Casey in 1988 (Act 169-1988) with is various changes through the years (2014, 2019, and 2023). Unfortunately, there are still a number of people who refuse to actually read the law and instead just keep passing false information around to other parents. I recently covered many of the questions I see from new parents with factual answers, but today I want to address a bit more. I am following a number of state homeschool groups and the number of times I see the same questions is staggering. What’s worse are the wrong answers. Without further ado: (remember these are in ADDITION to questions I already answered for you)
True or False :
Someone told me that you must complete 80% of curriculum in order for it to count or for your year to be complete. FALSE I don’t know where this person got this information but it’s incorrect. The law never mentions curriculum. Curriculum isn’t required to homeschool. Curriculum usually is referring to text books and text books are not required. There are required courses to complete within grade levels, but how you accomplish that is up to you. I don’t understand this term of “counts” in the first place. If your child learned something, would that not “count”? Stop thinking like a public school. Your year is complete when you have completed the required number of days or hours if you choose to count those instead, it doesn’t matter how much workbook or textbook work you did.
If you haven’t checked out this entire blog, I wanted to direct you to a few resources contained here. I have a link to free forms that you can, and should use for your homeschool record keeping. You can take a look and use them or get an idea of how to create your own. I have not only renamed this area but I have updated all the forms I created. There you can find a free transcript, affidavit, evaluation letters, reading materials log, an attendance record (not required), and a simple report card if you choose to use one (if I use one it’s sole purpose is for keeping a record in their academic record). I have also included forms from other places (of which many I can’t recall from where or I’d link the source) for your generic objectives that are required to be included with your affidavit and alternate affidavit, as well as the PDE diploma and immunization record (if you wish to use it). Your 12th grade evaluator needs to sign the PDE diploma. The Pennsylvania Department of Education has approved this diploma to be the “acceptable” parent-issued diploma. My suggestion is to print it, get it signed and in the event a college or some other entity requires a copy of their diploma you’ll have it. This does not mean you can’t make and issue your own and provide your graduate with that one for them to keep, but they should keep the PDE one as well.
Below are screenshots of some of the items mentioned. Visit the Free Forms page to download them.
Below is what the home education law states about the diploma:
(d.1) (1) Notwithstanding any provision of this act or any other law or regulation to the contrary, a high school diploma awarded by a supervisor or an approved diploma-granting organization shall be considered as having all the rights and privileges afforded by the Commonwealth, a Commonwealth agency, including, but not limited to, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, a political subdivision, a local agency and an authority or instrumentality of the Commonwealth or a political subdivision to a high school diploma awarded under this act, subject to subparagraphs (i) and (ii): (i) In the case of a diploma awarded by a supervisor the following shall apply: (A) The student receiving the diploma shall have completed all the requirements in subsection (d) while enrolled in a home education program that is in compliance with this section. (B) The diploma shall be awarded to the student on a standardized form to be developed by the department and which shall be made available on the department’s publicly accessible Internet website. (C) The diploma shall be signed by the student’s twelfth grade evaluator in confirmation of the student’s suitability for graduation. (ii) In the case of a diploma awarded by an approved diploma granting organization the following shall apply: (A) The student receiving the diploma shall have completed all the requirements in subsection (d) while enrolled in a home education program that is in compliance with this section. (B) The diploma shall be awarded to the student on a standardized form to be developed by the organization. (2) The department shall establish eligibility criteria and an application process for approving diploma-granting organizations to award high school diplomas to students enrolled in home education programs. The department shall maintain a list of approved diploma-granting organizations and post the list on the department’s publicly accessible Internet website.
You can do a search on topics such as curriculum, transcripts, reviews, portfolio, etc and find articles I’ve written since I began the blog in 2017. Please always make sure to follow the latest article for the most up to date information. There is a drop down list for you to select months/years of articles made as well as a tag block for you to click directly onto the topic of interest. Keep in mind that the blog may look different on different devices. You can always view the blog on your browser in desktop mode. I will be working on making the blog easier to navigate so keep an eye out for those changes. I plan to keep the blog current for as long as I have a child that I am homeschooling in the state of Pennsylvania. After that time remains to be seen. Rest assured though that I still have one remaining teenager with 2 more years highschool to go, so updates will continue, Lord willing. Everything I offer here is free to use, however as I am the content creator of the articles, I do retain the copyright to the articles I post. Please do share with others anything you find helpful but always supply the link to this blog. I receive no compensation for the information I have shared. My blog is only to help others navigate home education in the state of PA and perhaps my reviews can be helpful for anyone. Please do check out the other resources I have supplied for you in the Resources section of this blog.
Today I wanted to make a quick (we’ll see about that!) post about complying with the Pennsylvania Home Education Law in way of the portfolio and the evaluation. I hope this helps answer questions that many, many, parents have. I have seen these questions asked numerous times and I have seen well-meaning parents give inaccurate information, sometimes even illegal information. As I say often in my posts, if you want to homeschool in the state of Pennsylvania (or in your home state) the very first thing you need to do is read the law and than, read it again. The law tells you exactly the process and what is expected by you and by your evaluator and by your school district. Nothing needs to be added and should not be and nothing for sure should be subtracted because that is breaking the law. When you add or take away from what the law says, you are only hurting the homeschool community. When governing authorities see the law not being followed they will adjust accordingly and most likely it will not be in favor of homeschool families. So your first act, go here and read the law and make yourself a copy. Review the law often. Don’t take just the word of me, or other parents, no matter how long they have been homeschooling. Always, always, check what the law says and compare that to what you’re being told. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not up to your evaluator or your school district what you should or should not include. If you are part of a diploma program they will un-doubtably ask for more than the law requires, but that is your choice to follow their additional rules. I’m not going to mention any of those programs because I don’t use them and see no need for them for my family.
NOTE: This post was edited on June 9, 2023 to reflect changes made to the home education law.
Here we are in June and our school year has been done for a month. We ended with 200 days (in Pennsylvania 180 are required, or you can count hours) on May 17th. We promptly had our required by state teacher evaluation the following week. Then last week I had our new affidavit notarized and handed everything into the school district. We are officially closed on the 2018-2019 school year. We can now officially begin our new year on July 1st. We typically won’t do a lot of academics, but we will count educational field trips, social outings and volunteer work as well as time spent finishing any work, we didn’t complete but want/need to and I again assigned summer reading to both children.
I’m ahead of the game this year as I’ve already purchased all of our curriculum for the next school year. I will talk about my choices in an upcoming post. But for today let me briefly, for anyone not familiar and maybe doesn’t want to, or has no time to look over my other posts, explain how to homeschool in Pennsylvania. First, read the homeschool law. Find it here. If you don’t understand something in the law, find other homeschoolers and ask questions. You may already know of local homeschoolers. I am going to stress homeschool, not cyber school. They are very different. PA approved cyber schools are public education at home and not subject to the same laws. Private, out-of-state, online schools are subject to the same home education laws as traditional homeschoolers are. If you ask your school district to clarify the law you may well be met with information that is NOT in the law and that you should not comply with, the same with asking the PA Department of Education. They are not the final authority on the homeschool law. The PDE interprets the law very differently than how it’s actually worded. Use caution. If you’re not a member of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, consider it, though use caution there too. I’ve been met with less than ideal advice from those who say they are in support of homeschoolers as they do tell you to comply with the requests by school district officials that are NOT written in the law. I’ve dealt with the HSLDA last year. My advice, only supply what the law requires and nothing more.
Well I am posting today after a long break that was unexpected. Family matters….and I mean, family matters. When something happens in yours; when someone needs you; you drop everything and you go to them and you be there. So, that’s what I did. I’m back now and our school year is done. We’ve been done for a week and a half. The last 2 weeks of school were a bit of a blur as I was where I needed to be and that wasn’t really with my nose in a book, grading, or teaching. A perk of homeschooling is their work came with us when we weren’t home so that we could manage to finish. I got everything graded and recorded and handed them report cards. They did AMAZING! Our first year was a success.
Well I am posting today after a long break that was unexpected. Family matters….and I mean, family matters. When something happens in yours; when someone needs you; you drop everything and you go to them and you be there. So, that’s what I did. I’m back now and our school year is done. We’ve been done for a week and a half. The last 2 weeks of school were a bit of a blur as I was where I needed to be and that wasn’t really with my nose in a book, grading, or teaching. A perk of homeschooling is their work came with us when we weren’t home so that we could manage to finish. I got everything graded and recorded and handed them report cards. They did AMAZING! Our first year was a success.
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