Field guide · Confirm with the authority before you file
Homeschooling in Virginia
Notice of Intent to Provide Home Instruction, by August 15. The full list, with the deadline for starting partway through the year, is below.
Show progress, level 4 of 4
What Virginia actually asks of a family teaching their own children. Written plainly, and honest where the answer is that nobody asks for anything.
You tell
The division superintendent of your local school division
By
August 15
Each year in August, no later than August 15. If you move into a school division or begin home instruction after the school year has begun, notify the division superintendent as soon as practicable, then meet the requirements of the home instruction law within 30 days of that notice.
Who reviews it
The division superintendent, who decides whether a non-test evaluation is adequate.
If you skip it
Teaching your child at home is an acceptable alternative form of education under Virginia policy when the requirements of the home instruction law, including the annual notice, have been satisfied. If you do not provide the evidence of progress the law requires by August 1, your child's home instruction may be placed on probation for one year. You must then file with the division superintendent evidence of your ability to provide an adequate education and a remediation plan for the probationary year; if the superintendent accepts them, home instruction may continue for that year. If the plan and evidence are not accepted, or evidence of progress is not provided by August 1 following the probationary year, home instruction must stop and you must make other arrangements for your child's education that comply with the compulsory attendance law. You may appeal a decision of the division superintendent within 30 days to an independent hearing officer.
Who is in charge
Division superintendent of the local school division
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
August 15You file
Notice of Intent to Provide Home Instruction
Each year in August, no later than August 15. If you move into a school division or begin home instruction after the school year has begun, notify the division superintendent as soon as practicable, then meet the requirements of the home instruction law within 30 days of that notice.
Goes to: The division superintendent of your local school division
Includes a description of the curriculum, limited to a list of subjects to be studied during the coming year, and evidence that the parent meets one of the four qualifications in the law: the parent (i) holds a high school diploma; (ii) is a teacher of qualifications prescribed by the Board; (iii) provides the child with a program of study or curriculum, which may be delivered through a correspondence course or distance learning program or in any other manner; or (iv) provides evidence of being able to provide an adequate education for the child.
August 1You file
Evidence of academic progress
By 1 AUGUST following the school year of instruction
Goes to: The division superintendent of your local school division
Either (i) evidence that the child has attained a composite score in or above the fourth stanine on any nationally normed standardized achievement test, or an equivalent score on the ACT, SAT or PSAT test; or (ii) an evaluation or assessment that the division superintendent determines shows the child is achieving an adequate level of educational growth and progress. The law includes among such evaluations (a) an evaluation letter from a person licensed to teach in any state, or a person with a master's degree or higher in an academic discipline, who has knowledge of the child's academic progress, stating that the child is achieving an adequate level of educational growth and progress; or (b) a report card or transcript from an institution of higher education, college distance learning program, or home-education correspondence school. This requirement does not apply to a child who is under the age of six as of September 30 of the school year.
No fixed dateYou file
Evidence of ability to provide an adequate education, and a remediation plan, if home instruction is placed on probation
Only if your child's home instruction is placed on probation, for the probationary year. The law does not give a date for this filing; ask the division superintendent when it is due.
How often: when it happens
Goes to: The division superintendent of your local school division
The law asks for evidence of your ability to provide an adequate education for your child in compliance with subsection A of the home instruction law (where the four qualifications listed with the annual notice are set out), and a remediation plan for the probationary year that indicates your program is designed to address any educational deficiency. If the division superintendent accepts the evidence and plan, home instruction may continue for one probationary year.
The words a reviewer uses
'Adequate level of educational growth and progress', the superintendent's determination, and the reason a well-written evaluation matters as much as a score.
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 Virginia, which today are English (281 of 383), Mathematics (468 of 574), Science (537 of 604) and Social Studies (151 of 1631). Those figures count the topics we carry for ages 5 to 12 that cite one of Virginia's published standards. Physical Education and Arts are not in the app for Virginia 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 Virginia'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 7 Oct 2026
Sources last checked on 2026-10-07: Code of Virginia § 22.1-254, Compulsory attendance required; excuses and waivers; alternative education program attendance; exemptions from article. 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.