You may qualify to provide home instruction in one of the following four ways: Possess a high school diploma or higher degree, Possess a current Virginia teacher’s license, Provide your child with a curriculum or program of study as part of your home instruction program, or Give evidence that you are able to provide your child an adequate education.

You need to file a notice with your school district superintendent that you intend to provide home instruction to your child and indicate your home instructor qualification. With the notice, you need to provide a curriculum description (which is just a list of subjects) for each child. This needs to be done every year by August

Each year by August 1, you must provide to your superintendent an evaluation showing that your child has achieved an adequate level of educational growth and progress. (This does not apply if your child was 5 or younger on September 30 at the start of the school year.) There are four types of evaluations you can submit: Results of any nationally-normed standardized achievement test showing the child attained “a composite score in or above the fourth stanine” (i.e., 23rd percentile)—this could be an ACT, SAT, or PSAT score; An evaluation letter from a person licensed to teach in any state, or a person with a master’s degree or higher in an academic discipline, who knows about the child’s academic progress, stating that the child is achieving an adequate level of educational growth and progress; A report card or transcript from a college or community college, home-education correspondence school, or a college distance learning program; or Another type of “evaluation or assessment which the division superintendent determines to indicate that the child is achieving an adequate level of educational growth and progress.” (If you plan to submit this type of assessment, you should discuss this with the school system early in the school year.) Visit our Testing and Evaluation page for more information on annual assessment options. Here is what to do if your child’s year-end assessment does not show adequate progress: It may be possible to continue homeschooling, but you will need to write a remediation plan and get the school system to accept it. If your child still does not show adequate progress after another year, you will have to stop home instruction. If you believe the superintendent has given you a wrong decision, you have 30 days to appeal. Note: It's a good idea to get your assessment done early. That way, if the results show that your child did not make adequate progress, you have time to do a different type of assessment that allows your child to show adequate progress and turn in this assessment instead.

To homeschool under Virginia’s religious exemption option, you need to write an application letter to your school board. In your letter, you should: state up front that you are asking the school board to excuse your child based on Virginia's religious exemption statute, explain how your beliefs lead you to the conviction that putting your child in public school would be wrong in the eyes of God, and state that you are training your child in the same beliefs that you hold (assuming that is true). Your application letter should not discuss philosophical, moral, political, or social issues, because the law says that those cannot be grounds for receiving an exemption. Promptly mail your application letter to your school board as soon as possible. Keep a copy of the application letter for your records. The school board may ask you to forward a couple of letters from people who will confirm that you are sincere in your beliefs. The school board may also ask for a letter from a pastor, priest, etc., to confirm that your beliefs are of a religious nature. If the school board asks you to fill out a form, or asks you to meet with someone, you should seek additional guidance immediately. We offer detailed guidance for writing your application letter, which can be found below in the downloads section of this page.

As long as you have your application letter on file, you can proceed to homeschool with reasonable confidence—even though technically your child is not excused until the board acts on your letter. Many school boards meet only once or twice a month. If you have not heard back from your board within two months, you may need to send them a reminder. If your school system becomes belligerent and tries to insist that your child must stay in school until the board actually approves the exemption, consider simply filing a notice of intent to provide home instruction (as described above in the “Homeschooling under the home instruction option” section) until you get a reply granting your exemption. When you get your letter from the school board granting your exemption, read it very carefully and be sure you understand it. Not all exemption letters say the same thing. Keep the exemption letter in a safe, permanent place—school boards have been known to lose their own copies. Once your child is excused, he or she does not need to attend public school (or follow the requirements for any of the other homeschool options) while the exemption is in force.

Depending on how your exemption letter was worded, additional children may or may not be exempted.

Your exemption letter may say that you need to reapply next year.