Homeschool Requirements in Minnesota: The Test Nobody Collects

Minnesota tests every homeschooled child every year, and nobody ever sees the result. That combination is unique among the states covered here. The test is genuinely mandatory, genuinely annual, and genuinely private: you keep it. What you file is a full report by October 1 in your first year, and a one-page letter of intent to continue by October 1 in every year after that.

The other thing worth knowing before you read a list of instructor qualifications and panic: being the child’s parent is itself one of the qualifying options. The license and degree requirements exist for people teaching someone else’s children.

Checked against Minnesota Statutes §§ 120A.22 and 120A.24 and Minnesota Department of Education guidance as at 21 August 2026. Reports go to your local district superintendent, so confirm the local contact and any form preference with them.

Minnesota at a glance

What you file, and the October 1 date

Minnesota splits the reporting into a heavier first year and a light one after that.

The first year. By October 1 of the first school year the child receives instruction after reaching age seven, submit to the district superintendent:

• the child’s name, birth date and address,
• the annual tests intended to be used, where testing is required,
• the name of each instructor,
• evidence of compliance with the instructor qualification requirement.

Every year after that. By October 1, a letter of intent to continue providing instruction, plus any changes to what you previously submitted. That is it. If nothing has changed, the letter is a paragraph.

Note the trigger: the obligation attaches in the first school year the child receives instruction after reaching the age of seven. Minnesota’s compulsory instruction ages run from seven to sixteen, so a family homeschooling a five-year-old is not yet inside this system.

The instructor qualification list, and why it mostly does not apply to you

A person providing instruction must meet at least one of the following. Read the list to the end before reacting to the start of it:

1. hold a valid Minnesota teaching license for the subject and grade level,
2. be directly supervised by a licensed Minnesota teacher,
3. teach in a school that is accredited or recognized by the commissioner,
4. hold a baccalaureate degree,
5. be the child’s parent, provided the child is assessed under the annual testing requirement.

Option five is the one nearly every homeschooling family uses, and it is why Minnesota, despite the intimidating list, sets no real credential bar on parents teaching their own children. The first four exist for tutors, co-op teachers and supervised arrangements.

There is a trade in that structure worth naming. A parent qualifying under option five is qualifying by way of the testing requirement. The annual test is not a separate hurdle bolted onto Minnesota law; for most families it is the thing that makes the arrangement lawful in the first place.

The four subject areas

• basic communication skills, including reading and writing, literature, and fine arts,
• mathematics and science,
• social studies, including history, geography, economics, government and citizenship,
• health and physical education.

Four headings, but look inside them: fine arts sits within basic communication skills, and economics and citizenship are named explicitly within social studies. Minnesota’s list is shorter than Washington’s eleven areas and covers nearly as much ground.

Instruction and materials must be in English, with provision for other languages in specified circumstances. No hours or days are prescribed.

The annual test that nobody collects

Every child aged seven to sixteen is assessed each year using a nationally norm-referenced standardized achievement examination. Three features make Minnesota’s version different from every other testing state here:

1. The test is chosen by agreement. The superintendent and the instructor agree on which examination is used. This is a genuine conversation rather than a list handed to you, and it is worth having early: a test you can actually obtain and administer beats a theoretically superior one you cannot.
2. The results are not submitted. You maintain documentation that the subjects are being taught and that the tests have been administered. Nobody reviews the scores in the ordinary course.
3. There is no pass mark. No percentile you must clear, no probation, no program-level consequence.

What the score does trigger is aimed at the child rather than at you. Where a child’s performance is at or below the 30th percentile, or falls substantially below the level expected for their age, the parent must obtain additional evaluation to determine whether the child has learning difficulties.

That is the same instinct North Dakota shows at its 30th percentile: a low score is treated as a possible sign that the child needs assessing, not as evidence that the parent is failing. Read it as a prompt rather than a penalty, and if you have privately suspected a learning difficulty for a while, it is the opening you have been waiting for.

Children attending an accredited school or one recognized by the commissioner are exempt from the testing requirement.

Records: the county attorney clause

Minnesota asks you to maintain documentation showing that the required subjects are being taught and that the annual tests have been administered.

The statute is unusually specific about who might see it: the documentation must be made available to the county attorney when a case is commenced under the relevant proceedings. That is a truancy or neglect context, not a routine review, and it will never arise for the overwhelming majority of families.

But it tells you the shape of the record to keep. It is not a portfolio designed to impress an evaluator, as in Pennsylvania, and not a quarterly report as in New York. It is proof that instruction in four areas happened and that a test was administered each year. Keep it simple and keep it complete.

Records and evidence: what to keep

1. Every test result, permanently. Nobody collects them, which is exactly why losing them is a problem: they are your only evidence the tests were administered at all.
2. Coverage notes against the four areas, kept through the year. Fine arts and health are the two most often taught and least often recorded.
3. Copies of the October 1 filings, first-year report and every subsequent letter, with proof of the date.
4. The agreed test, in writing where possible, so next year’s conversation starts from the same place.
5. Any evaluation obtained after a low score, and what followed from it.

Because the only external artifact is a test result, a record organized by what was actually covered is what tells you in advance whether a test year holds surprises. Lesson materials that name the standard they cover do that automatically. Sprout Lessons builds standards-aligned lessons for grades K–12. Try it free.

How Minnesota compares

Minnesota and Washington land in almost the same place by different routes. Both test annually, both keep the result in the family’s hands, and both file one document a year. Washington gates entry on the parent’s credentials and then trusts the program; Minnesota lets the parent qualify as a parent and makes the annual test the condition of doing so. Of the two, Minnesota is easier to enter and slightly more prescriptive once you are in.

Compare the rest: Washington, Ohio, Oregon, North Dakota, Vermont, New York and Pennsylvania. For what to teach, start with homeschool curriculum in the USA. If an annual test comes back low, catching up after falling behind and helping with math at home without a tutor are the practical next steps, and interests as a gateway to the curriculum is how to keep the four areas covered without teaching to the test.

The honest summary

Two things to get right and the rest follows. File by October 1, in full the first year and as a short letter every year after. And agree the test with your superintendent early, because it is annual, it is the condition on which most parents qualify to teach, and a test you cannot readily obtain in August is a problem you created in September.

Then treat the score as information for you rather than a report card for anyone else, because that is exactly what Minnesota has designed it to be. The one time it does something is at the 30th percentile, and what it does then is get the child looked at.

Sprout Lessons builds standards-aligned lessons for grades K–12, so what you teach is already the documentation Minnesota asks you to maintain. Start free.

This guide summarizes Minnesota Statutes §§ 120A.22 and 120A.24 and Minnesota Department of Education guidance as at 21 August 2026. It is general information, not legal advice. Reporting is administered by your local district: confirm current requirements with the superintendent’s office or at education.mn.gov before you file.

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