New York · 2026-2027 school year
New York homeschool requirements, 2026-2027
Last checked against the statutes and the state's own guidance: 2026-09-04
What you must do this year, and by when
Am I covered? Usually, a child who is six by December 1 is covered from that September through the last day of the school year in which the child turns sixteen. If the child turns six after December 1, coverage starts the next September. New York City is reported to extend attendance to age seventeen for an unemployed minor; confirm with the central office before relying on it. Step 1 explains the edges.
Your New York year at a glance
| Event | When | Filed with whom |
|---|---|---|
| Notice of intent | By July 1; within 14 days of a midyear start or a move. | The resident district's superintendent; New York City families use the central office. |
| Individualized Home Instruction Plan (IHIP) | Within four weeks of the district's materials, or by August 15, whichever is later. | The resident district's superintendent; inside New York City, use the current NYC form. |
| Four quarterly reports | On the dates named in the IHIP. | The district's format if you filed with a district, NYC's current format if you filed with the central office. |
| Annual assessment | With quarterly report 4. | The district or NYC, with that quarterly report. |
- By July 1 (or within 14 days of a midyear start or a move): the annual notice of intent to the superintendent of the resident district, naming each covered child. New York City families file with the central office.
- Within four weeks of the district's materials, or by August 15, whichever is later: one Individualized Home Instruction Plan (IHIP) per covered child, with the subjects, materials, four report dates, and who is teaching.
- All year: at least 180 instruction days, and at least 900 hours in grades 1 through 6 or 990 hours in grades 7 through 12. Both totals apply.
- On the dates your IHIP names: 4 quarterly reports, each with the hours, the material covered, and a grade or progress statement per subject.
- With quarterly report 4: the annual assessment: a qualifying standardized test, or a written narrative in the grades and years the regulation allows it.
- Always: the attendance record, kept at home and available if the district asks.
If the district says the IHIP is deficient (rare; the clocks are here when you need them)
The clock moves from the event named in the letter. Keep the letter and proof of when it arrived.
| Event | Clock (where two dates appear, whichever is later) | Who acts next |
|---|---|---|
| IHIP arrives at the district | Within 10 business days after receiving it or August 31 | The district confirms compliance or gives written reasons for a deficiency. |
| Deficiency notice arrives | Within 15 calendar days after receipt or September 15 | The parent sends a revised IHIP. |
| Revised IHIP arrives | Within 15 calendar days after receipt or September 30 | The superintendent responds. |
| Deficiency-determination notice is mailed | At least 10 calendar days after the notice is mailed | The board meeting is named; the parent can contest at least 3 business days before the named meeting. |
| Final district determination arrives | Within 30 calendar days after receiving it | The parent may appeal, or arrange another lawful education program and tell the superintendent within 10 calendar days if the final review ends against the family. |
These are legal-review steps. Trellis explains the sequence but does not decide the dispute or prepare an appeal.
New York's home-instruction regulation is 8 NYCRR § 100.10, in title 8 of the New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. For each child the rule covers, a family sends an annual notice, an Individualized Home Instruction Plan (IHIP), the quarterly reports the IHIP names, and an annual assessment, and records 180 instruction days and a grade-based hour total. Nobody approves a home school before it starts; the filings are notice and record, and every one of them has a clock.
1. Check who the rule covers
Your facts decide.New York's home-instruction regulation is 8 NYCRR section 100.10. It sets the notice, the Individualized Home Instruction Plan (IHIP), instruction, report, and assessment steps on this page.
You, the family, decide whether that regulation covers your child, from your own facts. New York uses school-year entry and end rules, not a flat age label.
- Six by December 1: compulsory attendance starts that September.
- Six after December 1: it starts the next September.
- The usual end: the last day of the school year in which the child turns sixteen.
- A local age-seventeen rule may apply. A school board may extend attendance for an unemployed minor through the school year in which the child turns seventeen. New York City is reported to use that extension; confirm with the central office.
Early completion is unsettled
Finishing a four-year course early: how the § 3205 exception fits a parent-directed course is not settled. Ask the district in writing.Early completion is unsettled. Education Law § 3205 has an exception after a four-year high-school course. The sources reviewed do not clearly say when a parent-directed course qualifies. Trellis does not infer this from a parent diploma or transcript. Ask the district in writing or seek qualified New York legal advice.
- Age five is different: the home-instruction exception lets a parent wait until the ordinary compulsory age. A family may still teach at home. NYC asks for formal reports at age five when the family seeks special-education services.
Do not use this page for public-school homebound teaching or ordinary enrollment in a public or registered nonpublic school. Those schools control attendance and reporting. An online curriculum does not remove the New York filing duties by itself.
If you live in New York City: file with the central office, not your district
Use the central Office of Homeschooling and the current NYC forms.
- Send filings to the NYC Public Schools central office. Its enrollment-support page names the addresses: LetterofIntent@schools.nyc.gov for the letter of intent, Homeschool@schools.nyc.gov for questions. Follow its current file-name directions, and keep the sent email.
- Use NYC's own forms when practical. Its forms ask for some local details that are not part of the statewide IHIP list. A local request does not rewrite the state regulation.
- Five-year-olds: NYC says formal reporting is needed when special-education services are requested.
- OMNY is optional: NYC currently offers an educational-use OMNY card (the subway and bus fare card) as a courtesy after compliance review. It is not a statewide right and can change.
- NYC's current page asks for an IHIP within 28 calendar days after home schooling starts. That is NYC's local practice. The state rule says: Within 4 weeks after materials arrive or August 15, later. The state-rule deadline runs from the materials receipt; NYC's start-date practice is local practice, not law.
Outside NYC, file with the resident district's superintendent. The district sends its IHIP form after it receives the notice. Keep the form and proof of every delivery.
Compulsory attendance: Education Law § 3205 · NYSED: Home Instruction2. Send the annual notice
Name each covered child.Send this notice every year: By July 1. Send it to the superintendent of the child's resident district. NYC families use the central office shown above.
Starting during the year or moving into a new district gives you a different job. Within 14 calendar days after home instruction begins. The July 1 date belongs to a full-year start, not to yours.
The district's job: Within 10 business days after receiving the notice. Keep the received date. It starts the next clock.
Notice is not a request for permission. New York does not register or approve a home school before teaching can begin. A final noncompliance decision is a separate formal process.
If a filing is missed. § 100.10 sets a stepped process for two cases only. First, an IHIP still found deficient: written notice, then a board meeting at least ten days after mailing, then a Commissioner appeal within 30 days (§ 100.10(c)). Second, a failed assessment: probation of up to two school years (§ 100.10(i)). It names no separate penalty for a late July 1 notice or a single missed quarterly report; a final finding of noncompliance is the formal process above.
If nothing is filed at all. The regulation's stepped process starts from a filing. With no notice and no IHIP, the district's tool is the compulsory-attendance law itself. Education Law § 3212(2)(b) says a person in parental relation “shall cause such individual to attend upon instruction as hereinbefore required”. In plain terms: a parent must see that the child gets the instruction the attendance law requires. Home instruction is one way the law lets that happen. § 3233 makes a violation punishable by “a fine not exceeding ten dollars or ten days' imprisonment” for a first offense, and by up to fifty dollars or thirty days after that. Family Court Act § 1012(f)(i)(A) counts a failure to supply a child with adequate “education in accordance with the provisions of part one of article sixty-five of the education law” as neglect, but only after the district and the child protective agency have tried to fix the problem (“notwithstanding the efforts of the school district or local educational agency and child protective agency to ameliorate such alleged failure” before the petition is filed). That is the statute an educational-neglect report rests on. Answering the district's first letter with the notice and the IHIP puts you back inside the § 100.10 process.
Duties of persons in parental relation: Education Law § 3212 · penalties: § 3233 · neglect defined: Family Court Act § 1012(f) 8 NYCRR § 100.10(b)3. Send the IHIP
One plan per covered child.Prepare one IHIP for each covered child. A family with three covered children sends three IHIPs.
Send each IHIP by whichever comes later:
- Four weeks after the district's materials arrive.
- August 15.
The received date matters. Trellis will not invent it from the notice date.
Outside NYC, use the form your district sends. Inside NYC, use NYC's current official form. Trellis tracks dates and the academic record. It does not create, store, or submit the IHIP.
If you ask for help preparing the IHIP, the district must provide assistance. That assistance does not turn the IHIP into a district-created plan; the parent still submits the plan for the child.
Each child's IHIP names:
- The child's name, age, and grade level.
- The syllabus, curriculum materials, textbooks, or plan for every required subject.
- For a full year, 4 report dates spaced in even and logical parts. A midyear IHIP uses a proportional number.
- The name of each person giving instruction.
- For full-time college study, the institution and subjects. Full time means at least 12 semester hours.
The district's review job: Within 10 business days after receiving it or August 31, later. It either confirms compliance or gives written reasons for a deficiency.
If the district says the IHIP is deficient, the clocks are in the table above the steps, “The IHIP-deficiency timeline”. Keep the letter, because the deadlines run from when you received it.
8 NYCRR § 100.10(c) and (d)4. Meet both time totals
Days and hours.- Day target: the substantial equivalent of 180 instruction days.
- Hour target: at least 900 hours in grades 1 through 6, or 990 hours in grades 7 through 12.
- Minimum length of one day: none set.
Both totals apply. Reaching the hours does not replace the days. Reaching the days does not replace the hours.
Trellis counts a distinct date once when instruction is recorded, however short that date is. Two subjects taught on the same day still count as one attendance date. Trellis totals the exact minutes toward the separate annual hour rule.
The parent keeps the attendance record and makes it available if the district asks. Instruction may happen in the evening, on weekends, or away from home.
Absences follow the same basis the resident district uses.
Teacher, language, and place
These rules do not create a teacher-license or home-inspection requirement.
- Use a competent teacher. New York does not require the parent or ordinary instructor to hold a teaching certificate. The annual test administrator or narrative evaluator has separate rules.
- Instruction and textbooks are generally in English. Education Law § 3204 preserves an exception for a student with limited English proficiency.
- Learning away from home can count. The off-home site must not violate a local building-code rule.
Grades 1 through 6 subjects
Teach the whole list. The state assigns no unit amount to each item.
- Arithmetic.
- Reading.
- Spelling.
- Writing.
- English language.
- Geography.
- United states history.
- Science.
- Health education.
- Music.
- Visual arts.
- Physical education.
- Bilingual education or English as a new language when the child's need shows it applies. Trellis adds this row only when the parent records that need. It does not infer it.
Grades 7 and 8, across both years
9 units are cumulative across seventh and eighth grade.
- English: 2 units.
- History and geography: 2 units.
- Science: 2 units.
- Mathematics: 2 units.
- Art: 0.5 units.
- Music: 0.5 units.
- Physical education on a regular basis.
- Health education on a regular basis.
- Practical arts on a regular basis.
- Library skills on a regular basis.
Grades 9 through 12, across all four years
The home-instruction curriculum totals 18.5 units.
- English: 4 units.
- Social studies: 4 units, including 1 american history, 0.5 participation in government, 0.5 economics.
- Mathematics: 2 units.
- Science: 2 units.
- Art and/or music: 1 unit.
- Health education: 0.5 units.
- Physical education: 2 units.
- Electives: 3 units.
One home-instruction unit is 108 hours. These unit hours sit inside the annual 990 hours. They are not added on top.
Topics that cross grade bands
Some topics sit inside other subjects instead of becoming separate courses.
- During the first eight grades, teach United States history at least once.
- During the first eight grades, teach New York State history at least once.
- During the first eight grades, teach United States Constitution at least once.
- During the first eight grades, teach New York State Constitution at least once.
- Teach patriotism and citizenship.
- Teach health education about alcohol, drug, and tobacco misuse.
- Teach highway and traffic safety, including bicycle safety.
- Teach fire and arson prevention and safety.
Citizenship instruction also covers civic responsibility, religious tolerance, and human rights as the cited law requires.
The fire topic is required, but the monthly cadence is unsettled at home. Education Law § 808 gives schools a monthly schedule. Trellis creates no monthly home deadline. A family may use the school cadence as a cautious choice.
5. Send each quarterly report
Your IHIP sets the dates.Use the dates written in the IHIP. A full-year plan has 4 dates in even and logical periods. A midyear start uses a proportional number. A quarter with nothing due yet is not a missed report.
Use the district's report format if you filed with a district, or NYC's current format if you filed with the central office. Trellis records the date and filing status. It does not create, store, or submit the quarterly report.
Each report tells the district:
- The number of instructional hours during that quarter.
- The material covered in every IHIP subject.
- A grade or a written progress statement for every subject.
- A written explanation when less than 80% of the planned material was covered in any subject.
A quarterly progress statement is not the annual narrative assessment. The parent can write the quarterly statement. The annual narrative has separate evaluator, interview, portfolio, and consent rules.
Quarterly reports: 8 NYCRR § 100.10(g)6. Send the annual assessment
With quarterly report 4.In covered grades 1 through 12, file the annual assessment with quarterly report 4. A proportional midyear IHIP uses only the numbered quarterly slots it names and retains report 4.
The regulation's ordinary method bands begin in grade 1. If a district asks for formal kindergarten reporting, ask it or the New York State Education Department (NYSED) which assessment route applies.
- Grades 1 through 3: a qualifying standardized test or a written narrative every year.
- Grade 4: a qualifying test or a narrative; the first grade where the every-other-year narrative option applies.
- Grades 5 through 8: a qualifying test or a narrative. A narrative may be used no more often than every other year.
- Grades 9 through 12: use a qualifying standardized achievement test each year. A Regents, SAT, ACT, AP, or ordinary course test does not automatically replace it.
Standardized-test rules
Choose the test, administrator, and site early enough to get the score.
The regulation names the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, California Achievement Test, and Stanford Achievement Test. It also names the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills, Metropolitan Achievement Test, a State Education Department test, or another test the department approves. Confirm the exact edition before buying.
Who may administer it depends on the site. Public-school professional staff may administer it. Other sites or administrators may need consent from the chief school officer or superintendent.
Provision and administration are not the same thing. The regulation says the district provides a test on request and contains cost rules. NYSED's Q&A also says the district need not administer the test. Those directions do not fit neatly. Ask the district in writing before choosing the test and site.
Narrative-evaluation rules
The evaluator interviews the child and reviews a work portfolio.
A New York certified teacher, a home-instruction peer-review panel, or another person may prepare the narrative. The parent chooses the evaluator with the superintendent's consent. The evaluator interviews the child, reviews a portfolio, and certifies adequate or inadequate academic progress. The parent pays any evaluator cost.
If you and the superintendent disagree about test administration or an alternative evaluation, you can appeal to the board of education (8 NYCRR § 100.10(h)(3)). If the board's determination is still against the parent, the parent may appeal to the Commissioner of Education within 30 days after receiving it. Trellis keeps the facts you enter but does not file or decide either appeal.
A score exactly at percentile 33 is unsettled
The regulation says “above”; nothing published says what an exact 33 does.
The regulation says above percentile 33. The other route is one academic year of growth compared with a test given during or after the prior school year. Some NYSED and NYC explanations describe concern as a score below that percentile. The exact threshold sits between those wordings. Keep the score report and prior comparison. Ask for the district's written decision or qualified New York legal advice.
7. Keep the year's record
Attendance stays on hand.Keep the attendance record and make it available when the district asks (8 NYCRR § 100.10(f)(4) is the home-instruction rule; Education Law § 3211 sets the general school duty). Also keep the exact notice, IHIP, quarterly reports, assessment, district replies, and proof each item arrived. Those copies protect the family even when the regulation does not call each one a separate retained record.
Keep proof that each filing arrived - a mailed receipt, a delivery confirmation, or a dated email.
The Year Summary and Full Record are separate supporting records, not that delivery proof. Neither one replaces an IHIP, a quarterly report, an annual assessment report, or a district form.
Trellis builds much of the academic trail during ordinary planning. The Calendar holds dated work. The Learning Log adds learning outside assignments. The Gradebook holds progress. The High School planner holds courses, credits, and the transcript.
High school and the diploma limit
A completed home-instruction program does not produce a New York State diploma.
A parent may issue a family diploma and transcript, but they are not a local, Regents, or New York State diploma. Do not put a state or district seal on them.
A superintendent's written statement that the home-instruction program was substantially equivalent to a four-year high-school program is not a diploma. It can matter for New York college degree-conferral rules. Ask while the student is still of compulsory age, when NYSED says the superintendent must evaluate the request. After compulsory age, NYSED strongly encourages the review but does not describe it as required.
NYSED: home instruction, college admission, and degree conferralIf you want special-education services
This is optional and has its own written request.
Current law may let an eligible home-instructed child receive equitable services through an Individualized Education Services Program (IESP). The controlling statute for this optional route is Education Law § 3602-c(2-c). The child must be eligible to attend public school tuition-free. The IHIP must also be compliant. The New York State Education Department's (NYSED) page, Requirements for the Provision of Special Education Services to Home-Instructed (“Home-Schooled”) Students, sets the ask. The ask is this: “the parent must request special education services in writing to the board of education of the school district of location by June 1 preceding the school year for which the request for services is made.” In plain terms: write to the school board of the district where your child lives, by June 1 before the school year you want services in.
For services during 2026-2027, the usual written-request date is June 1, 2026.
- A child first identified after June 1 and before April 1 of the current school year has 30 days after first identification to request services.
- After a change in district of residence, the request is due within 30 days after the change.
The parent records the request date and keeps the supporting documents. Ask the district's special-education office which district receives the request and whether its current process adds local instructions.
NYSED: special-education services for home-instructed studentsIf an assessment says progress was inadequate
Use the formal remediation process. Do not let Trellis decide the case.
The superintendent may place the program on probation for up to 2 school years. The parent submits a remediation plan. It aims for at least 75% of its goals at each semester report and 100% by the end.
A home visit is not a routine inspection. During probation, the superintendent needs reasonable grounds to believe the program is in substantial noncompliance. The district gives 3 days of written notice. The visit is limited to identifying noncompliance and remediation methods.
What New York does not routinely ask for
Keep optional proof because it helps your family, not because every item is a filing.
- No parent teaching license, degree, or home-school registration.
- No required home meeting before instruction begins.
- No routine fire, health, or home inspection for an ordinary home-instruction program.
- No district-chosen curriculum, textbooks, pacing, calendar, or daily schedule. The IHIP, subject, day, and hour rules still apply.
- No foreign-language course, Regents exam, or public state test merely because the child learns at home.
- No routine filing of daily lesson plans, every worksheet, or socialization proof. Required reports and a narrative evaluator's portfolio review are different.
- No immunization attachment or required online curriculum provider for an ordinary home-instruction filing. NYSED's Home Instruction Q&A: “The provisions of Public Health Law Section 2164 which require parents to submit proof of immunization prior to admission of their children to a school do not apply to students being educated at home.” In plain terms: a home-instructed child files no immunization proof. The one exception it names is a declared outbreak, for a home-instructed child using school-building activities. A separate service or program may ask for other records.
- No general right to part-time public-school classes, teams, books, devices, or transportation.
- No routine duty to send the whole portfolio or every work sample. A narrative evaluator reviews a portfolio when that assessment method is used.
The annual assessment, grade by grade
Step 6 has the detail; this is the shape of 8 NYCRR § 100.10(h).
| Grades | What the regulation allows |
|---|---|
| 1 through 3 | A written narrative by a qualified person, or a standardized test. |
| 4 through 8 | A written narrative “no more often than every other school year”; a standardized test in the other years. |
| 9 through 12 | A standardized test each year; the narrative option is written for grades 1 through 8 only. |
| The passing line | “A composite score above the 33rd percentile on national norms”, or a score that “reflects one academic year of growth” over a test given in or after the prior school year (a score exactly at the 33rd is unsettled; the assessment step below says why). |
Questions New York families ask
Do I have to notify the school district to homeschool in New York?
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What is an IHIP and when is it due?
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How many hours or days are required?
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Is testing required?
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What subjects do I have to teach?
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Who is covered?
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Does New York issue a homeschool diploma?
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How you would know you are meeting these
New York's filings are detailed and clock-driven: an annual notice, an IHIP, quarterly reports and an annual assessment, each built from work a family does anyway. In Trellis the ordinary work logs itself against the clocks as you go:
- 180 days and the hour total (step 4)
- a distinct date counted once when instruction is recorded, and the exact minutes totalled toward the grade band's hours
- The notice, the IHIP, and the clocks (steps 2 and 3)
- each deadline counted from the date you record, never invented from another; the IHIP's subjects drawn from your plan; Trellis never sends a filing for you
- The quarterly reports (step 5)
- the hours, the material covered, and a grade or progress statement per subject, from the same records, on the dates your IHIP names
- The annual assessment and the record (steps 6 and 7)
- the method the regulation allows for that grade and year, the result kept with the year, and the attendance record on hand