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🚀 How to Start Homeschooling in Virginia

The first steps for a Virginia family starting to homeschool: what to file, how to leave a public school, and where to find co-ops, classes and help — drawn from our Virginia guide and articles.

Home instruction step by step (§ 22.1-254.1)

Home instruction is the route most Virginia homeschool families use. The statute calls it "an acceptable alternative form of education under the policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia" once its requirements are met.

Each year, by August 15, send your division superintendent a notice of intent to provide home instruction. Include a description of the curriculum — the law limits this to a list of subjects you'll teach in the coming year — and evidence that you meet one of the four options: you hold a high school diploma; you're a teacher of qualifications prescribed by the Board of Education; you provide a program of study or curriculum (which may be a correspondence course, distance learning program or anything else); or you provide evidence that you can provide an adequate education. Most families use the diploma option and attach a copy of the diploma.

If you begin home instruction after the school year has started, or move into a new school division, notify the superintendent as soon as practicable and complete the requirements within 30 days.

By August 1 after each year of home instruction, send evidence of progress: either (i) a composite score in or above the 4th stanine on any nationally normed standardized achievement test, or an equivalent score on the ACT, SAT or PSAT, or (ii) an evaluation or assessment the superintendent determines shows adequate educational growth and progress — for example, a letter from a person licensed to teach in any state, or with a master's degree or higher in an academic discipline, who knows the child's progress, or a report card or transcript from an institution of higher education, college distance learning program or home-education correspondence school. This doesn't apply to a child under 6 on September 30 of the school year.

If you don't provide evidence of progress, the program may be placed on probation for one year: you file evidence of your ability to provide an adequate education and a remediation plan. If the superintendent doesn't accept them, or evidence of progress isn't provided by August 1 after the probationary year, home instruction must stop. Any decision of the superintendent can be appealed within 30 days to an independent hearing officer.

Privacy: no division superintendent or school board may share the information you provide outside the school division without your written consent; the superintendent reports only the number of home-instructed students to the state (§ 22.1-254.1(G)).

Read the full section in our Virginia guide

Official sources

Summarized from our Virginia guide (as of November 2026) and articles. Rules change — confirm on the official pages before you act.

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