Pennsylvania Homeschool Requirements: The Affidavit, the Log, and the Evaluator

If you have spent an evening in Pennsylvania homeschool threads, you have probably come away believing you will be handing a binder of your child's schoolwork to a school district administrator every June and waiting to be judged. That was true once. It stopped being true on October 31, 2014, and the Pennsylvania Department of Education says so in its own guide: "As a result of Act 196 of 2014, school districts no longer collect the portfolio, they only collect the affidavit and evaluation." A lot of the fear people carry into this state is genuinely out of date. Here is the current shape of it, taken from PDE's own Home Education and Private Tutoring Guide (revised May 2026), the text of 24 P.S. § 13-1327.1, and HSLDA's Pennsylvania guidance.

The short version

• One filing a year: a notarized affidavit, or an unsworn declaration that needs no notary, to your school district superintendent before you start and then by August 1 every year after.
• An outline of education objectives by subject, attached to that filing. It cannot be used against you later.
• Either 180 days or the hours. 900 at the elementary level, 990 at the secondary level. You pick one. Not both.
• A portfolio you keep: a log made as you go, work samples, and test results. Your district does not collect it.
• Standardized testing in grades 3, 5 and 8, reading/language arts and math.
• One evaluation a year by a qualified evaluator, whose certification you submit by June 30.

That is the entire compulsory shape of a Pennsylvania home education program. Two deadlines, one habit. The habit is the part that decides how your year goes.

Step 1: the affidavit, by August 1

Pennsylvania's law puts one adult in charge of the program and calls that person the supervisor. The supervisor must be the child's parent or guardian and must hold a high school diploma or its equivalent. That is the whole qualification bar.

Before you begin a home education program for the first time, and then annually by August 1, the supervisor files with the superintendent of the district you live in. PDE lists nine components:

1. The name of the supervisor.
2. The name and age of the student.
3. The address and telephone number of the home education program site.
4. A statement that the mandatory subjects will be taught in English.
5. An outline of proposed education objectives by subject area.
6. Evidence of immunization, or a documented exemption.
7. Evidence of the health and medical services required for the child's age or grade.
8. Assurance that the program will comply with the law.
9. A certification that the supervisor, every adult living in the home, and anyone with legal custody has not been convicted of certain enumerated offenses in the past five years.

The unsworn declaration, which almost nobody mentions

Item 9 is why the word "notarized" follows Pennsylvania families around. But you do not have to find a notary. An unsworn declaration has the same components and needs no notarization; you sign it under penalty of perjury instead. PDE publishes templates for both, at elementary and secondary level, on its Home Education page. If you have been putting off starting because you dreaded the notary appointment, that appointment is optional.

What "education objectives" actually means

This is the item that makes new families freeze, so here is PDE's own framing. It writes that the outline is like a game plan for the coming school year, and that it "may be similar to a table of contents". And then the sentence worth writing on your hand: it cannot be used in determining whether an appropriate education has taken place. You are not signing a contract in August that you will be graded against in June. You are describing your plan. Plans change, and the law expects them to.

Step 2: the thing that changed in 2014

Before Act 196, the portfolio went to the superintendent, and school district personnel reviewed your child's schoolwork. That is the version of Pennsylvania that lives on in old forum posts, in advice from someone who homeschooled a decade ago, and in a lot of secondhand blog content.

Today the portfolio goes to your evaluator, who is someone you choose and pay. The only thing the district receives is the evaluator's certification that an appropriate education is occurring. The district does not review the work, and since it no longer sees the portfolio, PDE notes that districts no longer track which mandatory courses a student has completed toward graduation either. That last part cuts both ways, and it is covered further down.

Step 3: the portfolio, which is mostly one habit

The minimum contents are short:

1. Samples of writings, worksheets, workbooks, or creative materials used or developed by the student.
2. A log, made contemporaneously with the instruction, designating by title the reading materials used.
3. Standardized test results in grades 3, 5 and 8.
4. The written evaluation from your qualified evaluator.

Read the second item again. The word doing all the work is contemporaneously. The law does not ask for a beautiful binder. It asks for a record that was made while the teaching happened, not reconstructed in June from memory and a calendar. Every Pennsylvania family who has ever had a miserable spring had the same problem, and it was never the rules. It was trying to remember March in May.

Days or hours, and you only owe one

The log has to demonstrate that you provided either 180 days of instruction or 900 hours at the elementary level (K to 6) and 990 hours at the secondary level (7 to 12). PDE is explicit that both are not required, and that if you choose to document days, you do not need to specify the number of hours in each day.

For most families, days is the easier column to defend, because a day either happened or it did not. Pennsylvania also does not confine your school day to school hours: homeschooled students are not truant for schooling outside the times the public school is in session, so evenings, weekends and a four-day week are all yours to arrange.

Step 4: testing in grades 3, 5 and 8

In those three grades, results in reading/language arts and mathematics go in the portfolio. You have two paths:

• The statewide tests (PSSA), which your district administers at no cost to you. You have to tell the district early in the school year so they can order the extra tests. You are not required to explain why you did or did not choose this option.
• An approved nationally normed test from PDE's published list, at your own expense.

One rule people trip over, so know it before you buy a test: you may not administer the alternative test to your own child. Neither may a parent or guardian. PDE's guidance is to have a trained homeschool evaluator administer it in a suitable testing site, and your evaluator may ask who proctored it.

A quieter detail worth planning around: the testing is tied to the grade, not to what you have covered. If your child moved through two grade levels of material in a year, the test for the grade they are in is still due in that year's portfolio.

Step 5: the evaluator, by June 30

Once a year, a qualified evaluator reviews the portfolio, interviews your child, and certifies whether an appropriate education is occurring. Pennsylvania defines that phrase in the statute as a program of instruction in the required subjects for the required time "in which the student demonstrates sustained progress in the overall program." Sustained progress. Not a benchmark, not a percentile, not a comparison to a classroom.

Who qualifies as an evaluator:

• A licensed clinical psychologist or a school psychologist.
• A Pennsylvania certified teacher with two years of grading experience at the level being evaluated (K to 6, or 7 to 12).
• A nonpublic school teacher or administrator with two years of Pennsylvania teaching experience in the last ten years, at that level.
• Someone with other qualifications, with the superintendent's prior consent.

Two hard limits. The evaluator cannot be you or your spouse, regardless of your credentials. And you pay for it. PDE does not keep a list of evaluators; families find them through homeschool groups, a web search, or by asking the district for a recommendation.

The state's own practical advice is the best line in the whole guide: find your evaluator early in the school year and book the appointment then. Every June scramble in Pennsylvania is a September decision that did not get made.

The required subjects

Elementary (K to 6): English, including spelling, reading and writing; arithmetic; science; geography; history of the United States and Pennsylvania; civics; safety education, including fire prevention; health and physiology; physical education; music; and art.

Secondary (7 to 12): English, including language, literature, speech and composition; science; geography; social studies, including civics, world history, and U.S. and Pennsylvania history; mathematics, including general mathematics, algebra and geometry; art; music; physical education; health; and safety education.

It is a long list, and it looks longer than it is. Safety education, health and physiology, music and art are all real requirements, but nothing in the law says each one needs its own hour and its own textbook. A fire drill conversation is safety education. Learning to read music is music.

High school, and the diploma Pennsylvania actually gives you

This is where Pennsylvania is genuinely better than its reputation, and better than several stricter-seeming states. Since Act 196, the supervisor can issue a state-recognized high school diploma, co-signed by the student's twelfth grade evaluator. Enrolling in a PDE-recognized diploma-granting organization is the other option, and PDE states both are equally recognized.

Two things to plan for early:

• Confirm your twelfth grade evaluator will co-sign. PDE spells out the consequence plainly: the only person who may co-sign the diploma is the twelfth grade evaluator, so if that person declines, a supervisor-issued diploma is no longer possible for that year. Ask before you hire.
• You are now the transcript keeper. Because the district no longer sees the portfolio, PDE notes it does not track completed mandatory courses toward graduation. Nobody else is keeping that list. Graduation requirements are four years of English, three of mathematics, three of science, three of social studies, and two of arts and humanities, and the record that they happened is yours to hold.

One more thing families are often surprised by: homeschooled students in Pennsylvania have the right to participate in their district's extracurricular activities, subject to the same eligibility criteria and rules as any other student.

What happens if you miss June 30

Worth knowing, because the honest answer is calmer than the imagined one. If the evaluation is not submitted, the superintendent sends a certified letter saying the certification is past due and giving you 10 days from receipt to submit it. Only if that window passes does the board of school directors provide for a proper hearing.

Separately, if the superintendent has a reasonable belief during the year that an appropriate education may not be occurring, they must write to you by certified mail including the basis for that belief, and you have 30 days to submit an evaluator's certification. Any such hearing must be scheduled within 30 days, and the examiner must render a decision within 15 days of it. A possible outcome is a mutually agreed remedial education plan.

So the sequence is: a letter, a deadline, a hearing, and a plan. If you ever find yourself in it, that is the point to call a homeschool legal organization rather than read a blog post.

What the public schools and the colleges owe your family

Pennsylvania asks more of a home education family than almost any state, and in exchange it gives more back than almost any state. Most of what it gives back was added in 2022 and is missing from every guide we can find. Then there is one thing it does not give you at all, and the honest answer there is worth more than a hopeful one.

Sports, band, clubs and theater have been a "shall" since 2006

Subsection (f.1) of 24 P.S. 13-1327.1, added by Act 67 of 2005, is short and it is a command:

Beginning January 1, 2006, the school district of residence shall permit a child who is enrolled in a home education program to participate in any activity that is subject to the provisions of section 511, including, but not limited to, clubs, musical ensembles, athletics and theatrical productions

The conditions are the ordinary ones: your child meets the eligibility criteria "or their equivalent" that apply to enrolled students, meets the tryout criteria or their equivalent, and complies with the rules of the governing organization of the activity. Paragraph (2) then removes the argument a district might otherwise make about varsity teams, saying that the district's "program of interscholastic athletics, including varsity sports, shall be considered an activity" and that this covers competitive contests, games, events or exhibitions whether they occur between schools inside the district or outside it.

Paragraph (3) is the small one that saves families a real errand. Where an activity requires a physical examination or a medical test, and the district offers that exam to its own students, the district "shall permit a child who is enrolled in a home education program to access such physical examination or medical test." It then has to publish the dates and times "in a publication of general circulation in the school district and on its publicly accessible Internet website." If your district's site does not list them, that is a statute you can cite in an email.

On the association side, the PIAA's rules are short and they point back at your district. Article VI, Section 7 of the PIAA Constitution and By-Laws says that privately tutored students under Section 1327 and students "participating in a home education program under Section 1327.1 of the Public School Code of 1949 are eligible only at the public schools that the students would otherwise attend by virtue of their residences", and that for Cooperative Sponsorship of a Sport agreements they "are deemed to be enrolled at" that school. Your zoned public school is the door, and the cooperative sponsorship clause means a shared team between two districts does not shut you out.

One PIAA interpretation almost nobody knows about, and it may describe your family. An interpretation dated October 28, 2020 states that "Where a student enrolls in a private cyber school, it is viewed as being done under a home school education program since private cyber schools are not registered or recognized by the Pennsylvania Department of Education," and that the student's eligibility "must be determined under Section 7." If you use a private online school that is not a Pennsylvania cyber charter, the PIAA treats your child as a home education student for eligibility, which means the door above is your door.

The 2022 law that gave you a quarter of the school day, and nobody wrote about it

Act 55 of 2022 added three new subsections to the home education statute, effective with the 2023-2024 school year. They are the most useful thing to happen to Pennsylvania home education families in fifteen years, and if the only thing you have ever been told is that homeschoolers can play sports in Pennsylvania, you have been told about the 2005 law and not this one.

Subsection (f.2) does two separate things. The district must develop policies and procedures to let a home education student participate "on the same basis as other students enrolled in the school district" in any cocurricular activity that merges an extracurricular with a required academic course, "including, but not limited to, band or orchestra". That closes the gap that used to swallow marching band, where the ensemble is also a graded class. And then, in the same sentence, the district "must permit a child who is enrolled in a home education program to participate in academic courses equaling up to at least one quarter of the school day for full-time students".

A quarter of the school day, as a floor, by statute. Most states leave part-time enrollment entirely to the district's mood. Pennsylvania wrote a number.

The conditions and the fine print, all from (f.2):

• Your child meets the eligibility criteria and the prerequisite criteria "or their equivalent" that apply to full-time students, and complies with district policies.
• The district "shall provide the grade for each cocurricular or academic course to the home education program supervisor, who shall be responsible for maintaining the material in the portfolio of records." Someone else's grade, in your portfolio, which is a useful thing for an evaluator to see.
• Transportation is yours, with one exception in your favor: a home education student "may utilize district transportation to or from school during the times a bus is otherwise already operating and space is available."
• A board may require that the courses "be taken consecutively during the school day" if neither the school nor the parent can supervise the child between them. Expect a block, not a scattered schedule.
• Subsection (f.4) says nothing in (f.2) or (f.3) "shall prohibit a school district or a career and technical center from establishing policies that prioritize participation in courses or programs with limited seating or enrollment". A full class is a real answer. A closed door is not.

Subsection (f.3) does the same job for career and technical education, requiring the district or the career and technical center to develop policies letting a home education student participate in a CTE program on the same basis as enrolled students, with grades going to the supervisor for the portfolio and the same "buses already operating" transportation rule. For a fifteen year old who wants welding, HVAC or a health careers program, that is a whole path that most families do not know is open.

And the funding answer is written into both of them, which is why a district's cost objection does not survive contact with the statute. A home education student in a course under (f.2) "shall be included in the average daily membership of the school district of residence and shall be calculated by counting the time the home education student spends in the public school." The CTE version in (f.3) does the same for the district and the center. The Commonwealth pays the district for the time your child is there. If a district tells you it cannot afford to include your child, that is the sentence to bring.

One older provision worth carrying alongside these, because it costs nothing to use. Subsection (f) says the district of residence "shall, at the request of the supervisor, lend to the home education program copies of the school district's planned courses, textbooks and other curriculum materials appropriate to the student's age and grade level." At the request of the supervisor. That is you, and it is a request, not a negotiation.

Dual credit: Pennsylvania built the whole system around the word "enrolled"

This is the honest no, and it is worth understanding the shape of it rather than just hearing it.

Section 1525 of the Public School Code, rewritten by that same Act 55 of 2022, requires every school entity to have a dual credit agreement:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, a school entity shall enter into an agreement with an institution of higher education approved to operate in this Commonwealth in order to allow students to attend the institution of higher education while the students are enrolled in the school entity.

The section defines a school entity as "A school district, area career and technical school, charter school, cyber charter school or regional charter school." A home education program is none of those, and your child is not enrolled in one. The two provisions that put money behind that architecture follow the same word. Section 1525.1, added by Act 52 of 2023, lets a district count a dual credit student in its average daily membership only where the student "is enrolled in a dual credit course through an agreement entered into in accordance with section 1525". And the Dual Credit Innovation Grant Program at Section 2004-I, which exists to fund "dual credit courses that are tuition free to high school students", awards its grants to colleges "that offer dual credit opportunities to high school students enrolled in a school entity."

So Pennsylvania's mandatory dual credit agreement, its funding mechanism, and its tuition-free grant program all run past a home education family. That does not stop your sixteen year old from taking college courses. Every Pennsylvania college has an early admission or high school student policy, and a home education student can enroll and pay the way any other non-degree student would. It stops the free version.

Here is the question we think is worth asking, and we are not going to answer it for you. Act 55 of 2022 did three things on the same day, July 8, 2022: it gave home education students the right to take district academic courses up to at least a quarter of the school day, it rewrote the dual credit mandate, and it created the tuition-free dual credit grant program. The Act connected none of them in its text. Whether a district's dual credit course, taught under a Section 1525 agreement, can be one of the academic courses a home education student takes under subsection (f.2) is a question the statute leaves open, and it is worth putting to your district's home education coordinator and the superintendent in writing before you assume either answer.

A confident answer from a company that profits from the answer is worth nothing, so we are not giving you one. What we will say is that this is the highest-value question a Pennsylvania home education family can ask a district right now, that the two provisions came from the same pen on the same day, and that you should keep whatever reply you get.

How an AI teacher fits into a state like this one

Start with what we are not, because in Pennsylvania the boundary matters. Kitchen Table School is not a registered school in Pennsylvania or any other state. We do not file your affidavit. We are not your evaluator, and by law your evaluator must be an independent person you choose. We do not administer standardized tests. You are the supervisor on the paperwork, exactly as Act 169 intends.

What we do is the habit the whole year turns on. You upload the curriculum you chose, and the teacher reads it and teaches from its actual pages, pacing coverage across your school year. Every session records the date, the subject, the book and unit it came from, how long it ran, and what your child actually worked on. That is contemporaneous by construction, because it is written at the moment the teaching happens and not reconstructed later. It produces exactly what Pennsylvania's portfolio asks for first: a log designating by title the reading materials used, and work your child actually did.

Your child gets a patient teacher working one-on-one at their real level, kindergarten through twelfth grade. You walk into your evaluation in June with the year already written down. In Pennsylvania, that second half is most of the job.

Curious how this works day to day once the affidavit is in? Here's the honest guide to teaching your own curriculum with us, written for every out-of-state family, Pennsylvania included.