Pennsylvania Homeschooling
The links below to official Pennsylvania homeschooling information were checked August 1, 2020. It is always best to directly read Pennsylvania homeschooling information on the State of Pennsylvania homeschooling and FAQ page, so you are getting current information!
Pennsylvania Dept. of Education Website
Pennsylvania Dept. of Education Homeschooling web page
The homeschool page above has sample affidavits, list of achievement tests that are acceptable, and a link to a Word doc file titled “Home Education and Private Tutoring” that is 60 pages. We provide a 462kb pdf version of that January 2016 doc below (that was listed as a current resource on 8/1/20). According to that document, a “notarized affidavit and accompanying attachments must be submitted to the superintendent’s office in the student’s district of residence for a home education program to begin. Without this documentation, a home education program does not legally exist.”
Pennsylvania Dept. of Education Homeschool FAQ (updated 4/24/20 for Covid)
Home Education and Private Tutoring Guide (60 page 462kb pdf of January 2016 Word doc that was shown as current on 8/1/20. The pdf may take several seconds to load on some devices.)
Standardized Testing: According to the “Home Education and Private Tutoring Guide”, “The law requires that homeschooled students take the statewide tests or other authorized tests in grades 3, 5, and 8. The results must be reported in the portfolio; they are not reported to the school district. PDE publishes a list of acceptable alternative tests on the Home Education and Private Tutoring homepage.” According to the Pennsylvania Homeschool FAQ page above, testing was waived for 2019-20, so you might check the FAQ page later to see if they are also waiving 2020-21.
Always check directly with the official Pennsylvania Dept. of Education website to verify information. Even if some states may not require it, it is usually a good idea to let your last school know you will not be returning to avoid being counted as absent.
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HomeschoolingByState.com provides direct links to state government sites, so you get accurate and up-to-date information! By checking your state department of education website above, you get current information instead of 3rd party websites’ information that could be old information! States are changing their information much more often than past years due to covid-19! We regularly checks links to make sure the state has not changed pages or page addresses, but if you find a link that doesn’t work, the main Department of Education page is included above in case you want to use their search feature to find the information yourself. For example, search for “schooling at home”, “homeschool”, “home school”, “home instruction”, “nonpublic”, or “compulsory school attendance”. However, be careful since a search may return results for old web pages or documents. By checking your state department of education homeschool related page, you get current information instead of 3rd party websites’ information that could be old information!
