Field guide · Confirm with the authority before you file
Homeschooling in North Carolina
Notice of Intent to Operate a Home School, before you begin, at least five business days ahead. The full list is below. Also kept, and shown only if asked: nationally standardized achievement test; attendance and immunization records; grade 11 competency test, with a minimum graduation score you set.
Notify, level 2 of 4
What North Carolina actually asks of a family teaching their own children. Written plainly, and honest where the answer is that nobody asks for anything.
You tell
DNPE, online
By
Before you begin, at least five business days ahead
Do not withdraw your child from their current school or begin your home school until DNPE has acknowledged your notice. DNPE accepts notices July through April, not in May or June. If your child will turn 7 before June of the academic year, file at least five business days before the child's seventh birthday. When the school closes, close it in the DNPE home school portal or otherwise notify DNPE.
Who reviews it
DNPE staff, only if they ask to see your records
The law makes test records available at the school's principal office for one year after the test, for a yearly inspection by the Director of the Division of Non-Public Education or staff. DNPE says it may contact your home school, ask for a virtual meeting with the chief administrator, and request records by email or video conference. DNPE does not evaluate progress through test scores and sets no minimum score. State and local health inspectors may review immunization records.
If you skip it
Your home school does not count as school attendance
A home school counts only while it meets the home school law and runs on a regular schedule, excluding reasonable holidays and vacations, for at least nine calendar months of the year. If the school does not make, keep and produce attendance records, attendance there is not accepted in place of public school. A parent of a child aged 7 to 16 who breaks the compulsory attendance law is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.
Who is in charge
Division of Non-Public Education (DNPE), NC Department of Administration
Who reviews your child is set out at the top of this page, in the authority's own terms.
The year
What you must file
No fixed dateYou file
Notice of Intent to Operate a Home School
Before you begin, at least five business days ahead. Do not withdraw your child from their current school or begin your home school until DNPE has acknowledged your notice. DNPE accepts notices July through April, not in May or June. If your child will turn 7 before June of the academic year, file at least five business days before the child's seventh birthday. When the school closes, close it in the DNPE home school portal or otherwise notify DNPE.
Goes to: DNPE, online
One notice per home school, not one for each student, and it is not renewed each year: it stays in force until the school is closed. Each household may have only one open home school. The notice gives the school's name and address, the name of the chief administrator, and documentation showing that the teacher listed has a high school diploma or its equivalent. Before filing, you decide whether the school will operate as a religious or non-religious school. A notice is needed once a child is 7 or will turn 7 during the current school year.
No fixed dateYou keep
Nationally standardized achievement test
Each year the school operates
Goes to: KEPT ON FILE, not submitted
Must cover English grammar, reading, spelling and mathematics. Results kept at least one year and produced for DNPE inspection on request. DNPE says the first test is due within 12 months of its acknowledgment of your notice, then once in each 12-month period after that, and a child added to the home school later must be tested within one year of enrolling.
No fixed dateYou keep
Attendance and immunization records
n/a
Goes to: KEPT ON FILE, produced for DNPE inspection on request
No fixed dateYou file
Notice to DNPE of a change of address or enrollment
At any time the home school's address or enrollment changes
How often: when it happens
Goes to: DNPE
DNPE lists this among the requirements a home school must meet.
No fixed dateYou file
Reply to DNPE confirming the home school is still operating
In a timely manner, whenever DNPE contacts you to confirm the school is still operating
How often: when it happens
Goes to: DNPE
DNPE lists this among the requirements a home school must meet. DNPE may also ask for a virtual meeting with the chief administrator and for records by email or video conference.
No fixed dateYou keep
Grade 11 competency test, with a minimum graduation score you set
Once in each school year for a student in grade 11
How often: at grade 11
Goes to: Kept by the parent, made available for DNPE inspection for one year after the test
The law for the part your home school elects (G.S. 115C-550 or 115C-558) says the school gives each student in grade 11, once in each school year, a nationally standardized test chosen by the chief administrator that measures competencies in the verbal and quantitative areas, and sets a minimum score a student must reach on that test to graduate from high school. The results are made available for DNPE inspection for one year after the test.
The words a reviewer uses
The test is the evidence; DNPE inspects records rather than judging curriculum.
The part the paperwork does not cover
Filing on time is the easy half. The harder half is the year in between: showing what your child actually learned, in words the reviewer recognises, without turning your home into a school.
That is what this tool is for. You say what your child did, in a sentence. It maps that to the published standards we hold for North Carolina, which today are English (326 of 383), Mathematics (490 of 574), Science (425 of 604), Social Studies (2 of 1631) and Physical Education (7 of 106). Those figures count the topics we carry for ages 5 to 12 that cite one of North Carolina's published standards. A further 178 Social Studies topics are matched only to the national C3 Framework, which is guidance, not North Carolina's own standard. Arts is not in the app for North Carolina yet. A moment in any of those subjects is kept on the general map for your child's age and named that way in the record, so the record never cites North Carolina's curriculum where we hold none of it. Then it builds the record you can hand over the day someone asks. See how it works.
Sources
- Checked 11 Aug 2026
- Checked 11 Aug 2026
- Checked 11 Aug 2026
- Checked 7 Oct 2026
- Checked 7 Oct 2026
- Checked 7 Oct 2026
Sources last checked on 2026-10-07: N.C.G.S. Chapter 115C, Article 39, Nonpublic Schools. That is the date we checked, not the date the rule last changed.
Check it yourself: the source we used.
Guidance, not legal advice. Rules change and districts vary: confirm with the authority named above before you file.