A Quick Start Guide To Homeschooling

So you’ve decided you and your kids cannot tolerate the public school system. Excellent! Welcome to the homeschool community!

Getting started with homeschooling is really very easy. You’re getting an easy launching point with the beginning of summer break. 

You can also submit the paperwork today if you wish to remove your children immediately, rather than wait until summer break. However, each school district can set its own process for removing your children from the system. So you will have to discuss this with your school administration and/or the board of education. 

I highly encourage everyone to join the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). Home School Legal Defense Association is a “non-profit advocacy organization that advocates for homeschooling by protecting homeschooling families and equipping them to provide the best educational experience for their children. We have been trusted for over 40 years to care for homeschooling families as we safeguard their freedom and secure the future of home education.” https://hslda.org/post/who-we-are

Given the behavior of Pendleton County schools in particular, HSLDA will ensure that any retaliation against a family for seeking the best education and environment for their children is quickly stopped. 

**The Whisper and I (Momma Whisper) have no affiliation or benefit gained from HSLDA, whether you visit their site or purchase a membership. It is simply a well-established organization that has benefited thousands of homes and is thoroughly equipped to handle any shenanigans your local school district might throw at you.**

Now that we have cleared up the local matters, let’s move on to what the state of Kentucky requires of homeschool families.

Kentucky is very relaxed about homeschooling regulations. You must have your children aged 6 to 18 (as of August 1st) enrolled in a school program. As a homeschool family, the only paperwork you have to submit is an annual “Letter Of Intent,” often called an “LOI.” It is also called a “Notice of Intent,” but this term isn’t as frequently used. 

The hardest part of this letter is knowing when to submit it. Generally, the local school board requires this notice 2 weeks before the start of the school year, but no later than 2 weeks after. The fact that each local district has different start dates is why knowing when to submit this paperwork is tricky. 

NOTE: Make sure you receive proof that the school board collected this paperwork. Whether by mailing it certified mail signature required, or having an extra copy that the person you handed the LOI to signs. It is all too common for a school district to pretend it never received this letter.

According to the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)

“Typically, the notice should be submitted no later than the middle of August. The notice should list the students in attendance at your school and include their names, ages, and addresses.” https://hslda.org/post/how-to-comply-with-kentuckys-homeschool-law

Ta-da! You’re now legally all set to homeschool!

For the rest of the year, your daily and weekly routine will need to include a few things to remain in compliance with Kentucky laws, but, generally speaking, these tasks are more to protect against a random audit by the school district. Such audits are usually very rare. However, knowing how Pendleton County runs things, if they lose many students to homeschooling, they will try to find excuses to conduct more of these audits. Homeschool audits are a topic we can cover more in a later article, but for now, just know they exist.

1. Keep attendance and scholarship reports.

Every day, keep track of what you did. The records can be as simple or as complicated as you want. If you have an established curriculum, it is generally tracked for you. It can also be tracked as “Student and Parent baked muffins together, covering math, science, home economics, and history as we shared about great-grandma’s recipe and childhood.” 

Every 6 to 9 weeks, or as often as the local school district performs its own grading, you need to obtain evidence of your student’s progress. The evidence can be in the form of formal tests, completed worksheets, essays, or finished books. You can even perform oral exams; remember to record them in case the local school board demands proof. 

Oftentimes, you will see this requirement listed as “report cards,” but, as we know from national test scores, a report card doesn’t necessarily mean the child has learned anything, which is why I encourage parents to track progress instead. One of the goals of homeschooling, after all, is to ensure your children are truly learning. 

1. Teach for the required number of days.

I have never found a better explanation of this requirement than HSLDA’s, so to ensure minimal confusion, I will share their statements.

“A parent must ensure that at least 1,062 hours of instruction is provided to their child. This has to be done over at least 170 days. (While some parents prefer to keep a daily record of the hours of instruction they provide, if the amount of time you spend is fairly consistent, you can continue to primarily count days, as long as the total adds up to 1,062 hours over at least 170 days.)” https://hslda.org/post/how-to-comply-with-kentuckys-homeschool-law 

1. Teach the required subjects in English.

This one is fairly straightforward. Kentucky has required every private, public, and homeschool to teach eight core subjects throughout the school year. And these subjects must be taught in English. If your family is an English-as-a-second-language family, I suggest you reach out to HSLDA for guidance on how to comply with the language requirements while still ensuring your children understand the lessons.

The eight required subjects are:

1. Reading
2. Writing
3. Spelling
4. Grammar 
5. History
6. Mathematics
7. Science
8. Civics

The vast majority of pre-made curricula will combine writing, spelling, and grammar. This is a great help for parents, as it reduces the separate “classes” from eight to six. 

In other articles, we will discuss how you can cover these subjects without a pre-made curriculum, as well as various types of curriculum you can purchase that meet all state requirements. This article was designed as a quick-start guide for anyone who wants to begin homeschooling.

So, in summary, here are the steps to begin homeschooling.

1. Look into a membership with Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) to protect against any discrimination, harassment, or retaliation from your school district.
2. Speak with your child’s school about their process to remove the child from the system.
3. Submit a Letter Of Intent (LOI), also called a Notice Of Intent, no more than 2 weeks before the beginning of the local school term and no later than 2 weeks after that term begins, generally in the middle of August.
4. Track attendance and the student’s progress in a format that can be checked at the end of the year if you are audited.
5. Attend/teach school for a minimum of 1,062 hours over at least 170 days.
6. Teach the eight required subjects in English.

This summer, keep checking The Whisper for more articles about homeschooling! And once again, welcome to the homeschooling community.

By Momma Whisper