Before you can begin homeschooling your child in the state of Ohio, you must provide notification to the superintendent of the school district in which you reside if your child is between the ages of six and 18. The notification shall include the school year, your name and address, names and addresses of additional adults who will be teaching your child, and the name and birth date of your child. A separate notification is required if you will teach more than one child at home.
Also required in your notification, unless it conflicts with your religious beliefs, are proof of the subjects you will be teaching in the form of an outline of what you will be teaching, curriculum you will use such as textbooks and correspondence courses, and assurance that you will provide your child with the required hours of instruction. This may be achieved by providing a school calendar for the days you will teach your child along with the hours of instruction each day.
Finally, you must prove yourself competent to educate your child at home, providing information that validates you have a high-school diploma, a certificate or test scores that prove high school diploma equivalence, or proof that you will be educating your child under the guidance of someone who holds a bachelor's degree. You must continue to file this notification with your superintendent each year that you continue to home school your child.
Once you have begun your home education program with your child, the state of Ohio requires you teach for a minimum number of hours and cover specific subjects in your program. The required number of instructional hours is 900. If you are teaching your child five days a week on the average 36-week school-year schedule, you will need to teach for 25 hours a week, five hours a day. The core subject areas, language arts, social studies, mathematics and science, must be a part of your instruction. Language arts are to include reading, writing and spelling. Geography, U.S. history, Ohio history and government at the local, state and national level comprise the social studies requirements. Additional subjects beyond the core curriculum that are to be included are health, physical fitness, fine arts (this includes music instruction,) first aid, safety and fire prevention.
When your home education is complete, you must send in an assessment report along with your notification for the coming school year. There are three options you may choose from for the assessment, a standardized test, a portfolio review or an alternative assessment previously agreed upon between you and the superintendent. If you choose the standardized test method, the test is to be administered by a licensed/certified teacher, someone who has been authorized by the test publisher to do so or someone that you and the school superintendent have previously agreed upon. Portfolio reviews are a written narrative in which a licensed/certified teacher or other mutually agreed upon person reviews your child's work and decides whether he has performed within his abilities for the year. If the person you enlist to write the review of your child's portfolio charges a fee, you are responsible for the fee.