New Hampshire Homeschool Law - New Hampshire Homeschooling

Disclaimer: The following information is provided as a courtesy to homeschooling families in New Hampshire and is not intended as legal advice. The New Hampshire Homeschooling Coalition strongly urges all parents or legal guardians to read and thoroughly understand the text of the home education law (RSA 193-A) and administrative rules (Ed 315) before initiating contact with their participating agency.

Summary of the Legal Requirements for Homeschooling in New Hampshire

Home education in New Hampshire is governed by RSA 193-A, which went into effect on July 1, 1991, and by several subsequent changes to the law. Under this law, parents or legal guardians who wish to homeschool their child(ren) are required to:

Contact a participating agency (in most cases, the local school superintendent or a participating private school ) of their intent to homeschool.
Keep a portfolio of the homeschooled child’s work and log of reading materials
Have an annual evaluation demonstrating educational progress commensurate with the child’s age and ability. These requirements are explained in more detail below.
Notification

The compulsory attendance law (RSA 193:1), and by extension, the home education law (RSA 193-A), applies to those children who are six years of age (by September 30) and under 16 years of age.

Effective 7/1/09, the upper age of compulsory attendance will be raised from 16 to 18. There will be a number of children who turn 16 but not turn 18 before 7/1/09. For those children who are homeschooled, there will be a period of time when a home education program will not be required, followed by a period of time when it will. This table shows when a letter of intent or evaluation is required, based on the child’s date of birth.

You should send in your letter of notification by the time school starts in your district, and must notify within 5 days of withdrawing a child from school. If a child is withdrawn from a public school after the school year has started, parents should ensure that officials are aware that the child will be homeschooling in order to avoid being charged with truancy. You need to put this in writing and keep a copy.

Although the law states that parents may choose to notify either the commissioner of education, resident district superintendent, or a nonpublic school principal, we strongly recommend that you do not use the Commissioner of Education at the New Hampshire Department of Education (DOE) The Department of Education does not have the resources to handle a large number of homeschoolers. The DOE has returned, for lack of sufficient information, a large number of homeschool evaluations.

Most homeschoolers use their local school district as the participating agency. Many nonpublic schools make themselves available to homeschoolers to use as a participating agency. This private school does not need to be in your area. Typically, nonpublic schools that are willing to act as the participating agency charge a fee for this service, which may or may not include access to the nonpublic school's curriculum, classes or other activities, and/or participation in the school's testing/evaluation programs.

According to RSA 193-A and HB 406, the letter of notification should include:

names, addresses and dates of birth for all children of compulsory attendance age (from 6 years of age, by September 30, and up to 16 years of age) to be homeschooled,
names and address of the parents
a phone number where the parent can be reached during the day
date on which the homeschooling program will start
We have two sample letters of notification that you can take a look at; one is a basic letter, the second has a place for the participating agency to sign and return to you.

Since the passage of HB406, you are not required to submit a curriculum or scope and sequence with your letter. Many school districts are still not aware of the change in the law and you might want to mention or attach a copy of HB406 with your letter of notification.

To protect your privacy, you may also want to add "All information provided herein is considered privileged and confidential. Any further disclosure of this information requires written parental consent prior to such disclosure."

The participating agency is required to acknowledge your notification, in writing, within 14 days, assuming it contains the information listed above.

If you decide to end your home education program prior to age 16, written notice should be filed with your participating agency within 15 days of termination of the program.

Portfolio

Parents are required to keep a log of reading materials and a portfolio of the child's work related to the homeschooling program for two years. The portfolio is the property of the parents; the superintendent cannot require that you submit it to the district for review.

If you plan to use the portfolio method for your evaluation, you will want to include enough samples of your child’s work so the evaluator can determine that educational progress has been made. How much is enough? It varies depending on the evaluator, but one or two pages of work in each of the subject areas your child has studied, taken at three different times of the year, is often sufficient to demonstrate progress.

Evaluation

Parents are required to have their child's educational progress evaluated each year, and submit the results of the evaluation (in writing) to the participating agency. The child's progress may be evaluated by any of the following methods:

evaluation by a certified teacher ( See our list of Evaluators. For a list of states with reciprocal teacher certification with New Hampshire go to http://www.ed.state.nh.us/education/doe/organization/programsupport/Certification/interstate.htm) or a teacher currently teaching in a nonpublic school (the teacher may be hired by the parent, or, if the parent requests it, the local school district must provide an evaluator);
national student achievement test, administered by a person who meets the qualifications established by the provider or publisher of the test, OR a state student assessment test used by the resident school district. A composite score on either test at or above the 40th percentile is considered an acceptable score.
Any other valid measurement tool mutually agreed upon by the parent and the commissioner of education, resident district superintendent, or nonpublic school principal. (It’s recommended that you get this agreement in writing ahead of time to avoid any unpleasant surprises.) If you choose to use an independent evaluator, try to set up the evaluation at well before the deadline (July 1). Find out exactly what information the evaluator needs in order to perform the evaluation.
The results of the evaluation, typically no more than one or two pages, are to be submitted to and reviewed by the participating agency. An evaluation is not considered complete unless it has a parent's signature, so if you feel your child's evaluation is not accurate, do not sign it. We have posted more information on compiling a Homeschool Portfolio Evaluations and a Form that an evaluator can use, if they would like. We have provided a sample cover letter to send with the teacher's portfolio evaluation, as well as a letter to send with test results.. These are simply suggestions, and not necessities. Please use your own judgment.

If the child has not demonstrated educational progress at a level commensurate with his ability, the superintendent or principal will notify the parent that acceptable progress has not been achieved, and the parent shall have one year from the date of receipt of the written notification to provide remedial instruction to that child. At the end of the one-year probationary period (or sooner, if the parent chooses), the child shall be reevaluated, using any of the four methods, and may continue homeschooling if educational progress is demonstrated.

Conclusion

It is very important that homeschooling families become thoroughly familiar with the requirements of the law, and that they not submit to any requests other than those required by law. Even if your family doesn't mind complying with requests for information which are beyond the scope of the law, your doing so may make things more difficult for the other homeschooling families (who may have different opinions about what is "reasonable" than you do) who come after you.