New York education law requires that children who are 6 years old before the first day of December in a school year are to receive an education until they are least 16 years old. Individual school districts have the power to increase the compulsory age to 17 if the minor child is not working, so it is imperative to consult the laws of the district in which you live.
Parents who choose to home-school their children are required to send a letter of intent to their local school district's superintendent by July 1 before the school year in which they plan to begin instruction. If parents have withdrawn their child from another method of educational instruction during the school year to home-school them, they have 14 days (after beginning the home education) to submit their letter of intent.
Those who choose to educate their children at home must submit an Individualized Home Instruction Plan (IHIP) to their local school district's superintendent by August 15 or within 4 weeks of receiving the form. The IHIP must include: the child's information, including name, age and grade level; a plan of instruction with information such as a syllabus, the curriculum and textbooks used; a selection of dates when you will submit quarterly reports; and a statement of the subjects the child will study, if he or she will be attending a degree-granting institution full-time as an alternative to home education.
If parents follow all the regulations set forth for home-schoolers, they are deemed competent to educate their children at home and need not hold a teaching certificate or degree.
Though parents can use any curriculum of their choosing, New York law requires that particular subjects be taught to students from kindergarten through 12th grade, regardless of whether the students are attending public school or receiving home education. The required subjects vary by grade level and are listed in New York statutes 801, 804, 806, 808, and 3204.
New York law requires parents home-schooling their children to submit quarterly reports to the superintendent of their school district. The reports must include a log of instructional hours, a description of the material covered for each subject and either a grade or a narrative evaluation.
Along with the final quarterly report, parents are required to submit an annual evaluation, in the form of an achievement test or a narrative evaluation. For home-schooled children in the fourth grade through the eighth grade, a narrative evaluation may be used only every other year for the annual evaluation. For students in grades nine through 12, an achievement test is the only acceptable form of annual evaluation.
The only home-schooling recordkeeping required by New York law is attendance. These records must be made readily available to the local superintendent upon request.
For home-schooled children, the required length of instruction is 180 days, which must include 900 hours of instruction per year for grades one through six and 990 hours for grades seven through 12.