Delaware homeschool requirements

How to start homeschooling in Delaware

The general path most families follow. Delaware's specific requirements are in the summary above — confirm the exact steps and deadlines with your state before relying on them.

1. 1

   Check what Delaware asks for before you begin

   Delaware: register as a nonpublic school and file an annual attendance report. No minimum days or hours, and no testing. Confirm the exact form, deadline, and current wording with Delaware or HSLDA before you rely on any of it.

2. 2

   Teach on whatever schedule suits your family

   Delaware sets no instructional-time minimum, so the calendar is yours — year-round, four days a week, evenings, whatever fits. Choose your curriculum and go.

3. 3

   Decide whether to assess — Delaware doesn't require it

   Delaware requires no standardized test. Some families test anyway to check progress or to have something on file if they later move to a stricter state.

Delaware doesn't set a minimum — which changes why you'd keep records

Delaware sets no hour or day minimum, which settles the instruction-time question and leaves the rest to you. No test is required either, so nothing is generated on your behalf that you could point to later. Either way, records in Delaware stop being about compliance and start being about what comes after — a transcript for college admission, a portfolio if you move to a stricter state, or simply knowing what your kid actually covered. Families who keep nothing rarely regret it until one of those arrives.

What to keep in Delaware

• ✓A simple record of what was taught and when — no state minimum to hit, but it's the thing you'll wish you had
• ✓Samples of your child's work — writing, math, projects, and photographs of things they built or grew. Delaware won't ask for them; the year you need them, nothing else will do.
• ✓The curriculum and materials you used — Delaware names no subject list, so your own record of what you covered is the only map of the year
• ✓Any assessment you choose to do (Delaware doesn't require one)
• ✓Grades and a transcript — especially for high school, and especially if you ever move somewhere stricter than Delaware

Homestead and project work in your Delaware records

Delaware doesn't prescribe a subject list, which means how you categorise your children's practical work is almost entirely your own judgement. That is more freedom than most states allow — and it puts the whole weight on your records, because there is no official framework to fall back on if anyone ever asks what a year looked like.

Delaware sets no minimum, which sounds freeing until the year you need to prove something — a move to a stricter state, a return to school, a college application. Recording the work costs almost nothing while it is happening and is close to impossible to reconstruct afterwards.

How practical work is categorised is a judgement your family and Delawaremake — Cultivate records what you did, it doesn't decide what counts. Confirm anything you intend to rely on with Delaware or HSLDA.

Delaware homeschool requirements — FAQ

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