Pennsylvania's homeschool law looks like an audit before you have taught a single lesson. A notarized affidavit filed with the superintendent, a portfolio of your child's work, standardized testing in three separate grades, and an outside evaluator who signs off on your year. A parent reading the Pennsylvania requirements for the first time could conclude the state intends to sit in the room with her from September to June. It does not. The law is heavier on paper than its neighbors, but almost all of that paper stays in your house, and the part that leaves it fits in one envelope twice a year.
The annual affidavit is due to your district by August 1, a little over three weeks away. If you plan to homeschool in Pennsylvania this fall, this is the week to get the paperwork moving.
Four legal paths, and the one most families use
Pennsylvania gives you four ways to educate at home. The Home Education Program under 24 P.S. § 13-1327.1 is the path this guide covers, because most of the state's homeschoolers use it. A state-certified teacher can instead teach your children as a private tutor. Some families enroll as a satellite or extension of a church day school or an accredited day or boarding school, which moves the reporting to that umbrella organization. Cyber charter school is public school at your kitchen table; it costs nothing and suits some families, but it is not homeschooling under the law, and none of the requirements below apply to it.
If you are still weighing options, the state-by-state guide shows how Pennsylvania compares, and comparing homeschool methods helps you decide what the teaching itself will look like once the paperwork is filed.
The affidavit: due August 1
One document starts your year: a notarized affidavit (the state also accepts an unsworn declaration) filed with the superintendent of your district of residence. File it before you begin the program in your first year, even mid-year, and by August 1 in each year after that. The supervisor of the program, most often a parent, needs a high school diploma or its equivalent.
The affidavit includes:
The supervisor's name, plus the name and age of each child in the program
Your address and phone number
An assurance that instruction is in English
An outline of proposed educational objectives by subject area
Evidence of immunization and required health services, or an exemption
A certification that the supervisor and the adults in the home have no convictions for certain offenses in the past five years
New families agonize over the objectives outline more than they need to. A sentence or two per subject is plenty, and under Act 196 of 2014 the superintendent may not use your objectives to judge whether your program complies. Keep them broad.
Districts do not approve your program, either; under 22 Pa. Code § 11.31a, filing the paperwork is what authorizes you to begin. And if your child is enrolled in public school now, pair the affidavit with a formal withdrawal so the attendance office has no reason to call. Many states run on a one-page notice of intent, which the letter of intent generator produces in minutes; Pennsylvania asks for more up front, then leaves you alone for the year.
Subjects, days, and hours
Required subjects come in two grade bands. At the elementary level: English (spelling, reading, and writing), arithmetic, science, geography, United States and Pennsylvania history, civics, safety education including fire safety, health and physiology, physical education, music, and art. At the secondary level: English (language, literature, speech, and composition), mathematics including algebra and geometry, science, geography, social studies including civics and world history, health, physical education, safety education, music, and art.
The year must run 180 days of instruction, or 900 hours at the elementary level and 990 at the secondary level. Most families count days and let hours ride. If you track hours instead, the hours calculator breaks the annual total into a weekly rhythm, and how many hours a day to homeschool is a sane look at what a day needs to hold.
The portfolio: built at home, kept at home
The portfolio is the requirement for families to overbuild. The statute asks for two things kept as you go: a log, made contemporaneously with instruction, that lists the reading materials you used by title, and samples of your child's writings, worksheets, workbooks, or creative work in the required subjects. In grades 3, 5, and 8, the standardized test results are also entered.
The list is short on purpose. The law does not require daily lesson plans, minute-by-minute time logs, a grade book, or a copy of every worksheet. A binder per child, containing a running book list and dated work samples from each subject, satisfies the statute. If you keep records digitally, homeschool record keeping covers what to save and what to skip, and HomeschoolFox tags subjects as core or non-core, so a year of logged activities sorts itself when evaluation season arrives.
The portfolio's audience is your evaluator, and only your evaluator. Before 2014, families mailed the whole thing to the district each June. Act 196 ended that; the district now receives the evaluator's certification and nothing else, and the superintendent has no authority to inspect the portfolio.
Testing in grades 3, 5, and 8
Three times in a child's school career, Pennsylvania requires standardized testing in reading/language arts and mathematics: grades 3, 5, and 8. You choose a nationally normed test from the approved list (Iowa, Stanford, Terra Nova, the California Achievement Test, Woodcock-Johnson, and others) or use the state's own PSSA. A parent may not administer the test, so most families test through a co-op, an evaluator, or a proctored online option.
The scores land in one place: your portfolio. You do not send them to the district, and the district may not request them.
The evaluator: one interview, one letter
Each spring, a qualified evaluator reviews the year. Three kinds of people qualify: a Pennsylvania-certified teacher with at least two years of teaching experience (elementary experience to evaluate elementary students, secondary for secondary), a licensed clinical or school psychologist, or a nonpublic school teacher or administrator with two years of Pennsylvania teaching experience within the last ten. The evaluator cannot be you or your spouse, though, with the superintendent's prior consent, someone with other qualifications may serve.
The evaluation itself is smaller than it sounds. The evaluator interviews your child, looks through the portfolio, and writes a certification stating that an appropriate education is occurring, meaning you taught the required subjects for the required time, and the student shows sustained progress. You submit that certification to the superintendent by June 30. Fees range from free (some ministry-affiliated evaluators charge nothing) to about $200 per child, with $50 to $150 typical; the higher fees tend to include extras like high school transcript help.
Book early. Good evaluators fill their May and June calendars by spring, and a scramble in the last week of June is the one avoidable crisis in the Pennsylvania cycle.
What your district can and cannot do
Your district's role is to receive two documents: the affidavit in August and the evaluator's certification by June 30. It cannot demand the portfolio, request test scores, require a meeting with your child, or invent forms of its own. A district official who asks for any of these is operating outside the authority the statute grants, and you can decline in writing, citing 24 P.S. § 13-1327.1.
The one exception is narrow. A superintendent who has a reasonable belief that an appropriate education may not be occurring may send a certified letter requiring an evaluation, and you then have 30 days to submit an evaluator's certification. Even then, the remedy is an evaluation by an evaluator you choose; the letter does not authorize an inspection of your home or your binder.
Act 196 also secured the diploma: one issued by the supervisor on the state's standardized form, or through an approved diploma-granting organization, carries the same rights and privileges as a public school diploma.
Your Pennsylvania year at a glance
By August 1 (or before you begin, if starting mid-year): file the affidavit with your superintendent.
September through May: teach the required subjects for 180 days or 900/990 hours, keep the reading log as you go, and drop dated work samples into the portfolio.
Grades 3, 5, and 8 only: schedule a nationally normed test and file the results in the portfolio.
May or early June: meet your evaluator for the child interview and portfolio review.
By June 30: submit the evaluator's certification to the district. Done until August.
The pattern repeats year after year, which is reassuring. Map your 180 days once in the school year planner, log as you teach, and next summer, the affidavit is the only thing standing between you and a new year. If this is your first year, how to start homeschooling walks through the broader decisions, but do not let the reading list delay the filing. The affidavit comes first, and August 1 is close.
