Homeschooling in New York

Yes, you can do this here. New York’s requirements follow a repeatable rhythm: notify, plan, report, and assess.

If you are wondering whether homeschooling works where you live, the answer in New York is yes. One set of rules governs home instruction across the state, and once you see the year laid out, the filings stop feeling like hurdles and start feeling like a calendar.

One pathway, and it runs through your school district

Home instruction in New York is governed by Section 100.10 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education. It is a regulation adopted by the Board of Regents rather than a statute, and it governs home instruction statewide. New York City uses a separate centralized administrative process, described below.

Routine home-instruction filings go to the superintendent of your district of residence rather than to the New York State Education Department. New York City families use the city’s centralized Home Schooling Office. The district reviews what you send against the regulation and issues compliance determinations. Filing is not an application for discretionary permission, but the IHIP, quarterly reports, and annual assessment must comply with Section 100.10.

That review is meant to be objective rather than a matter of opinion. The New York State Education Department says a home instruction program that meets the standards of the regulation at each stage should be considered substantially equivalent. Your plan is checked against the list of required items, not compared with the district’s own curriculum.

NYSED states that New York law requires no specific credential for a parent, tutor, or other person providing home instruction, and a district may not require one. You may also engage a tutor for all or part of the program.

An online curriculum or school program may supply your instruction, and many families use one. It does not replace your New York filings. The Department is explicit that the obligation to file depends on where your child is taught, not on where the materials come from, so the notice, the plan, the quarterly reports, and the annual assessment are still yours to submit even if a provider considers your child enrolled.

If you live in New York City. The city runs a central homeschooling office with its own email filing process, its own forms, and its own document requests, including parent identification and proof of residency. Those are city administrative requirements, not state law. Check the New York City Public Schools home schooling page for the current year’s process before you file.

What New York asks for, and how to handle it

These are the main recurring requirements under Section 100.10. Your district has obligations of its own, and those appear under Your New York Year. Additional provisions that apply in particular circumstances are explained below.

What New York asks for

  • Annual written notice to the superintendent of your school district of residence of your intention to educate your child at home, by July 1 each year. If you begin during the school year, or move into the district during the school year, the notice is due within 14 days after home instruction begins. § 100.10(b)
  • An Individualized Home Instruction Plan, or IHIP, for each child, submitted within four weeks of receiving the district’s materials or by August 15, whichever is later. It contains five required categories: the child’s name, age and grade level; a list of the syllabi, curriculum materials, textbooks or plan of instruction for each required subject; the dates you choose for your four quarterly reports; the names of the people providing instruction; and, where it applies, a statement that the child is meeting compulsory education requirements through full-time college study. § 100.10(d)
  • Instruction in the subjects required for your child’s grade band. § 100.10(e)
  • The substantial equivalent of 180 days of instruction each school year, and 900 hours per year for grades 1 through 6 or 990 hours per year for grades 7 through 12. Absences are permitted on the same basis as under the school district’s policy for its own students. § 100.10(f)(1)–(3)
  • Records of attendance, maintained by you and made available to the district on request. § 100.10(f)(4)
  • Four quarterly reports for each child, due on the dates you set in the IHIP. Each one gives the number of hours of instruction that quarter, a description of the material covered in each subject listed in the IHIP, either a grade in each subject or a written narrative evaluating progress, and a written explanation if less than 80 percent of the material planned for that quarter in any subject was covered. § 100.10(g)
  • An annual assessment for each child, filed with the fourth quarterly report. Grades 1 through 3: a norm-referenced achievement test or a written narrative. Grades 4 through 8: a written narrative may be used no more often than every other school year. A family may instead use a qualifying test every year. Section 100.10 provides no written-narrative alternative for grades 9 through 12; the regulation sets out the norm-referenced test route. A score is adequate if the composite is above the 33rd percentile on national norms or reflects one academic year of growth. Individual test subscores are not used to determine whether the program is placed on probation. § 100.10(h)

How to handle it

  • You write this yourself. There is no state form.
  • The Education Plan Builder turns your year into a printable plan you can draw the IHIP from. Note that you set your own quarterly report dates, spaced in even and logical periods.
  • Hundreds of courses can help cover New York’s required subjects. Use the complete grade-band list below to identify any additional instruction your IHIP needs.
  • Applecore Record Keeping tracks attendance and the High School Hours Tracking Logs handle hour counts for older students. Instruction is usually given within the general timeframe of a school day, but evenings and weekends are possible; the total per week should be generally comparable to the public school.
  • This is the only record the regulation requires you to keep. Applecore Record Keeping holds it. The Department recommends also keeping evidence of your program, your child’s work, and your correspondence with the district.
  • The Schoolhouse Gradebook holds grades and the Portfolio Builder organizes the work samples you will draw on. The 80 percent explanation is a normal part of the record, not a penalty.
  • You choose the method and the test. You may use a test named in the regulation or another test approved by the Department. The district provides a test on request, though if you choose one the district has not ordered, it orders the test and you pay the procurement cost, and offsite facilities, transportation and personnel are also yours. A narrative is written by a New York State certified teacher, a home instruction peer review panel, or another person chosen by you with the superintendent’s consent, after an interview and a portfolio review. The Portfolio Builder and the Portfolio Review Template get the year in order first. If your child has an individualized education services program, ask your district what applies.

What New York asks for

How to handle it

  • Annual written notice to the superintendent of your school district of residence of your intention to educate your child at home, by July 1 each year. If you begin during the school year, or move into the district during the school year, the notice is due within 14 days after home instruction begins. § 100.10(b)
  • You write this yourself. There is no state form.
  • An Individualized Home Instruction Plan, or IHIP, for each child, submitted within four weeks of receiving the district’s materials or by August 15, whichever is later. It contains five required categories: the child’s name, age and grade level; a list of the syllabi, curriculum materials, textbooks or plan of instruction for each required subject; the dates you choose for your four quarterly reports; the names of the people providing instruction; and, where it applies, a statement that the child is meeting compulsory education requirements through full-time college study. § 100.10(d)
  • The Education Plan Builder turns your year into a printable plan you can draw the IHIP from. Note that you set your own quarterly report dates, spaced in even and logical periods.
  • Instruction in the subjects required for your child’s grade band. § 100.10(e)
  • Hundreds of courses can help cover New York’s required subjects. Use the complete grade-band list below to identify any additional instruction your IHIP needs.
  • The substantial equivalent of 180 days of instruction each school year, and 900 hours per year for grades 1 through 6 or 990 hours per year for grades 7 through 12. Absences are permitted on the same basis as under the school district’s policy for its own students. § 100.10(f)(1)–(3)
  • Applecore Record Keeping tracks attendance and the High School Hours Tracking Logs handle hour counts for older students. Instruction is usually given within the general timeframe of a school day, but evenings and weekends are possible; the total per week should be generally comparable to the public school.
  • Records of attendance, maintained by you and made available to the district on request. § 100.10(f)(4)
  • This is the only record the regulation requires you to keep. Applecore Record Keeping holds it. The Department recommends also keeping evidence of your program, your child’s work, and your correspondence with the district.
  • Four quarterly reports for each child, due on the dates you set in the IHIP. Each one gives the number of hours of instruction that quarter, a description of the material covered in each subject listed in the IHIP, either a grade in each subject or a written narrative evaluating progress, and a written explanation if less than 80 percent of the material planned for that quarter in any subject was covered. § 100.10(g)
  • The Schoolhouse Gradebook holds grades and the Portfolio Builder organizes the work samples you will draw on. The 80 percent explanation is a normal part of the record, not a penalty.
  • An annual assessment for each child, filed with the fourth quarterly report. Grades 1 through 3: a norm-referenced achievement test or a written narrative. Grades 4 through 8: a written narrative may be used no more often than every other school year. A family may instead use a qualifying test every year. Section 100.10 provides no written-narrative alternative for grades 9 through 12; the regulation sets out the norm-referenced test route. A score is adequate if the composite is above the 33rd percentile on national norms or reflects one academic year of growth. Individual test subscores are not used to determine whether the program is placed on probation. § 100.10(h)
  • You choose the method and the test. You may use a test named in the regulation or another test approved by the Department. The district provides a test on request, though if you choose one the district has not ordered, it orders the test and you pay the procurement cost, and offsite facilities, transportation and personnel are also yours. A narrative is written by a New York State certified teacher, a home instruction peer review panel, or another person chosen by you with the superintendent’s consent, after an interview and a portfolio review. The Portfolio Builder and the Portfolio Review Template get the year in order first. If your child has an individualized education services program, ask your district what applies.

If an annual assessment does not demonstrate adequate progress, that child’s home instruction program is placed on probation for up to two school years. The parent submits a remediation plan addressing the deficiency, and the district may require changes before accepting it. The program comes off probation when the child reaches the progress specified in the plan. Continued failure to meet the remediation requirements can lead to a formal noncompliance determination. During probation, the superintendent may require a home visit only when there are reasonable grounds to believe the program is in substantial noncompliance and only after three days’ written notice. Outside probation, a school official may request a home visit, but the parent is not required to consent.

The required subjects, by grade band. Every one of these is set by Section 100.10(e), where a unit means 6,480 minutes of instruction per school year. Course content may differ from your district’s, and a second language is not required.

Grades 1 through 6. Arithmetic, reading, spelling, writing, the English language, geography, United States history, science, health education, music, visual arts, physical education, and bilingual education or English as a second language where the need is indicated.

Grades 7 and 8, cumulative across both years. English, two units. History and geography, two units. Science, two units. Mathematics, two units. Physical education, on a regular basis. Health education, on a regular basis. Art, one-half unit. Music, one-half unit. Practical arts, on a regular basis. Library skills, on a regular basis.

Grades 9 through 12, cumulative across the four years. English, four units. Social studies, four units, including one unit of American history, one-half unit of participation in government, and one-half unit of economics. Mathematics, two units. Science, two units. Art or music, one unit. Health education, one-half unit. Physical education, two units. Electives, three units.

Required across the grade span. United States history, New York State history, and the Constitutions of the United States and New York State must each be taught at least once during the first eight grades. Patriotism and citizenship, health education regarding alcohol, drug and tobacco misuse, highway safety and traffic regulations including bicycle safety, and fire and arson prevention and safety are covered across kindergarten through grade 12.

NYSED also states that required health education includes age-appropriate instruction concerning AIDS at least once in grades K through 6, once in grades 7 and 8, and once in grades 9 through 12. Human sexuality and family planning may be included, but New York does not require them.

A district may not expand the five required IHIP categories. If it is unfamiliar with a textbook, the Department says it may ask you to choose between providing a written scope and sequence or temporarily supplying a review copy, which must be returned promptly. A district may not find your program deficient because it believes your child needs more socialization.

If your child has been identified as needing special education services. A home-instructed student with a disability may receive services from the district. Two conditions apply: the child must be entitled to attend the public schools without payment of tuition, and there must be an IHIP the superintendent has determined complies with Section 100.10. The Committee on Special Education develops an individualized education services program. The written request goes to the board of education of the district by June 1 preceding the school year. If the student is first identified after June 1 and before April 1 of that school year, the request is due within thirty days after identification. A request may also be submitted within thirty days after a change in the district of residence. If June 1 passes, a district may still exercise its discretion to provide services requested later, so long as it treats all late requests equally. That is discretion, not something you can count on.

On immunization, the requirement that a school receive proof before admitting a child does not apply to a student educated at home. Certain limitations do apply to an unimmunized child who does not have a valid medical exemption, and each of them involves entering a school building or vehicle: State and Regents examinations given at a school, auditing or intermittently attending classes at a nonpublic school, riding school transportation with other students, and receiving special education services inside a public, private, or parochial school. An unimmunized student without a valid medical exemption may still receive special-education services at home or another qualifying location. The board determines where services are made available. When services are provided somewhere other than the student’s home, the district remains responsible for transportation, subject to the restriction on shared school transportation.

High school records and credentials

This is the part New York families most need stated plainly, and the three terms below are not interchangeable.

A home-instructed student does not receive a local or Regents high school diploma. A diploma may be awarded only to a student enrolled in a registered secondary school who has completed the program requirements.

The New York State Education Department does not award official school credit through home instruction. Parents may still maintain a homeschool transcript showing completed courses, grades, hours, and parent-assigned credit values. Those are family records rather than New York school credits. If the student later enters a school, the principal determines placement and decides what credit the school will award.

A letter of substantial equivalency is a separate thing, and it is not a diploma. Under the Rules of the Board of Regents, a candidate may show the preliminary education required before a college degree is conferred by having completed the substantial equivalent of a four-year high school course, certified by the superintendent of the district of residence. For a student of compulsory school age, the superintendent is required to perform that evaluation on request. For a student beyond compulsory age, the Department strongly encourages the superintendent to do it, but does not require it. The letter is documentation a college keeps in the student’s file for degree conferral. It does not guarantee admission, and the Department does not prescribe how a college must treat it for admission. Each institution sets its own admission requirements and may decide whether or how to consider it.

A New York State high school equivalency diploma is a third and separate credential, earned through the state’s high school equivalency route or by completing 24 semester hours of college credit in specified subjects. Beyond compulsory age, the Regents Rules also recognize passing five specified Regents examinations as a way to meet the preliminary education requirement for a degree.

Two other things worth knowing. If a request is made, school officials are encouraged to admit a home-instructed student to Regents examinations, which may be given only at a public school or a registered nonpublic school. And a student of compulsory age who wants to meet compulsory education requirements through full-time college study, meaning at least 12 semester hours, submits an IHIP authorizing that study to the college before enrolling.

Your New York year

Compulsory school age. Education Law § 3205 requires each minor from six to sixteen to attend upon full time instruction. A child who turns six on or before December 1 must be receiving instruction from the first day school is in session that September; a child who turns six after December 1 begins the following September. Attendance runs to the last day of session in the school year the child turns sixteen, and a board of education has the power to extend that to seventeen for minors who are not employed. A district may require kindergarten for five-year-olds, but the statute expressly excepts students in home instruction.

July 1. The school year begins, and the annual notice of intention is due to your superintendent.

Within 10 business days of your notice. The district must send you a copy of the regulation and an IHIP form for each child. This is your district’s obligation, not yours.

Four weeks later, or August 15, whichever is later. Your IHIP is due.

Within 10 business days of receiving it, or by August 31, whichever is later. The district must tell you the IHIP complies or give you written notice of any deficiency. If there is a deficiency, your revised IHIP is due within fifteen days of that notice or by September 15, whichever is later. The superintendent then responds within fifteen days of receiving the revision or by September 30, whichever is later. If the superintendent determines that the revised IHIP still does not comply, the written notice must explain why and identify the applicable board of education meeting. A parent may contest the determination before the board and may appeal the board’s final determination to the Commissioner of Education within thirty days.

If you are starting mid-year. File the notice within 14 days after home instruction begins. From there the same clock applies, and the number of quarterly reports is proportional to the part of the year remaining.

If your child is currently enrolled in school. The 14-day notice deadline is the legal requirement. Separately, ask the school about its own withdrawal procedure, and keep dated copies of both. Keeping dated copies can help prevent or resolve unexcused-absence concerns while the change is being documented. That last part is practical advice rather than a rule.

Four times through the year. Quarterly reports, on the dates you chose.

With the fourth quarterly report. The annual assessment. The Department recommends telling the district which method you are using by the end of the third quarterly period, though the regulation does not set a date for that. If you are teaching at a kindergarten level, ask your district which assessment method applies to your child.

June 30. The school year ends.

What comes with one membership

SchoolhouseTeachers.com is your home base for two things at once.

The Curriculum Lane. Hundreds of online, self-paced courses for preschool through twelfth grade from a Biblical worldview, plus interactive iST courses, Virtual School Boxes, World Book Online, and thousands of family-friendly videos.

The Records Lane. The Homeschool Records & Compliance Center, with the Education Plan Builder, Custom Schedule Builder, Portfolio Builder, Applecore Record Keeping, Schoolhouse Gradebook, Portfolio Review Template, High School Hours Tracking Logs, Certificates of Completion, and transcript templates and tools that members use to prepare their own transcripts.

One membership covers every child in the family. No per-child fees, no per-course fees.

What a membership does is help you teach and help you keep your records in order. It does not file anything with your district, and it does not replace the documents New York requires you to produce.

“SchoolhouseTeachers.com is just amazing! I’ve had my account for almost two years, and I still don’t think I’ve seen everything!”

Ammy Quinn, SchoolhouseTeachers.com member

You do not need a teaching degree

New York’s paperwork is detailed. Its teaching qualification is simple: NYSED states that New York law requires no specific credential for the person providing home instruction. You may teach every subject yourself, engage a tutor for all or part of the program, or use outside courses.

Your child is being discipled either way, whether at your kitchen table or in a classroom across town. Someone is answering the big questions. Someone is teaching whom he answers to. You get to be the one.

Questions? Call 1.888.718.HOME or email customerservice@theoldschoolhouse.com. A real homeschooler answers.

This page describes New York’s home instruction requirements in general terms and is not legal advice. Requirements change and school district practices vary. Confirm current requirements with the New York State Education Department and your school district of residence before you file. SchoolhouseTeachers.com provides curriculum and recordkeeping tools. It is not a school, it is not accredited, it does not file documents for families, and it does not guarantee that any document will be accepted by a school or government agency.

Sources: 8 NYCRR § 100.10; New York Education Law §§ 3204, 3205, 3210, 3212, and 3602-c; Public Health Law § 2164; Rules of the Board of Regents §§ 3.47 and 8.2; New York State Education Department, Home Instruction Questions and Answers, the February 14, 2005 guidelines on conferral of a college degree and home instruction with full-time college study, current High School Equivalency guidance, Requirements for the Provision of Special Education Services to Home-Instructed Students, and Vaccination Requirements Applicable to All Students; and current New York City Public Schools home schooling guidance.

Last reviewed: August 2026