Homeschool Requirements in Virginia: Two Dates and One Strange Word

Virginia runs on two dates and one word almost nobody outside education has ever met. The dates are August 15, when your notice of intent is due, and August 1, when evidence of the past year’s progress is due. The word is stanine. Virginia accepts a standardized test result if the composite score is “in or above the fourth stanine”, which sounds like a demanding standard and is not: the fourth stanine begins at roughly the 23rd percentile.

Virginia also has something no other state in this series offers: a religious exemption that removes a child from compulsory attendance entirely, with no notice of intent and no annual evidence. It is a genuinely different legal route, not a variant of home instruction, and it is worth understanding before you choose.

Checked against Code of Virginia § 22.1-254.1, with the religious exemption at § 22.1-254, and Virginia Department of Education guidance as at 21 August 2026. Notices are filed with your division superintendent.

Virginia at a glance

The four ways to qualify

You state on the notice of intent which one applies. Any single option is sufficient.

1. Hold a high school diploma. The simplest and the one most families use.
2. Be a teacher of qualifications prescribed by the Board of Education.
3. Provide the child with a program of study or curriculum, which may be delivered through a correspondence course, a distance learning program, or in any other manner.
4. Provide evidence that you are able to provide an adequate education for the child.

Option three deserves attention because it is quietly the broadest provision in Virginia homeschool law. It qualifies you by reference to the curriculum rather than to anything about you, and the statute explicitly allows it to be delivered “in any other manner”. A parent with no diploma who uses a structured program satisfies the statute through option three.

The notice of intent, due August 15

File annually with your division superintendent. It contains:

• a description of the curriculum to be followed for the coming year, and
• evidence of meeting one of the four qualification options.

On the curriculum description: the statute limits it to a list of subjects to be studied in the coming year. This is a listing exercise, not a syllabus, and a superintendent is not entitled to require detail beyond it. Families routinely over-produce here, and every extra page invites a question the law did not ask.

August 15 is a firm date and it falls in the least convenient part of the year. Diarize it for early August, because the notice is annual and there is no automatic renewal.

Evidence of progress, due August 1

By August 1 following the school year, provide the superintendent with evidence of the child’s educational achievement. Three routes satisfy it:

1. A standardized test result. A composite score in or above the fourth stanine on any nationally normed standardized achievement test. Equivalent ACT, SAT or PSAT results also qualify.
2. An evaluation or assessment that the superintendent determines indicates the child is achieving an adequate level of educational growth. In practice this is usually an evaluation letter from a person licensed to teach in any state, or a person with a master’s degree or higher in an academic discipline, who has knowledge of the child’s academic progress.
3. A report card or transcript from a community college, a college, a correspondence school or a distance learning program.

Children who have not reached the age of six as of the relevant date are excused from the evidence requirement altogether.

What a stanine actually is

A stanine is a nine-point scale that compresses percentile ranks into bands, from 1 (lowest) to 9 (highest), with 5 sitting in the middle. It is a standard psychometric scale and it appears on most norm-referenced score reports, usually alongside the percentile.

The practical translation: the fourth stanine begins at approximately the 23rd percentile. So Virginia’s bar sits somewhat above Oregon’s 15th percentile, below New York’s 33rd, and well below North Dakota’s 50th. Roughly three quarters of test takers clear it.

If your score report gives percentiles rather than stanines, that mapping is the conversion you need, and most publishers print both. Do not assume “fourth out of nine” means below average in the way that phrasing suggests.

And note the alternative properly, because it removes the score question entirely: route two needs no test at all. An evaluator who knows the child’s work writes a letter. For a child who tests badly but is genuinely progressing, this is the route the statute provides, and it is not a lesser option.

If evidence is not provided

1. The home instruction program is placed on probation for one year.
2. You file a remediation plan with the superintendent, describing how the deficiency will be addressed.
3. If the plan is not accepted, or adequate progress is not shown after that year, home instruction shall cease.

The structure is close to New York’s: a defined probationary period with a plan, rather than an immediate consequence. What it is not is a review of your teaching style. Probation here is triggered by the absence of acceptable evidence, which means it is usually an administrative failure rather than an academic one, and it is usually fixable by producing the evidence.

The religious exemption: a different road entirely

Separately from home instruction, Virginia law allows a child to be excused from compulsory school attendance where the child, together with the parents, is conscientiously opposed to attendance at school by reason of bona fide religious training or belief. The school board makes that determination.

A family granted a religious exemption is outside the home instruction statute altogether. No annual notice of intent. No August 1 evidence of progress. No qualification option to satisfy.

Three things to weigh before treating that as the easier path:

• The standard is religious belief, not philosophical preference, and it is adjudicated. A dislike of the local school does not meet it.
• It is granted by the school board, and practice varies by division, so it is a process rather than a filing.
• Because there is no record of progress being generated, families sometimes find re-entry to school, or documentation for college admission, harder later.

It is a real and long-standing provision, used by a meaningful number of Virginia families, and it is genuinely lighter. It is also a legal status rather than a paperwork shortcut, and it should be chosen for the reason the statute names.

Records and evidence: what to keep

1. A copy of each notice of intent, with proof of the August 15 filing date.
2. Each year’s evidence of progress, whichever route you used, plus proof you filed it by August 1.
3. Dated work samples. Not required by statute, but they are what an evaluator reads when you use the evaluation route rather than the test route.
4. The subject list you filed, so next year’s notice is a revision rather than a fresh composition.
5. Test score reports in full, showing both stanine and percentile, since which one is printed varies by publisher.

If you expect to use the evaluation route in any year, the record that matters is a body of dated work an evaluator can actually assess. Materials that name the standard they cover make that letter easy to write and hard to argue with. Sprout Lessons builds standards-aligned lessons for grades K–12. Try it free.

How Virginia compares

Virginia sits in the middle of everything: two filings, a real but low score threshold, a genuine alternative to testing, and a qualification requirement that almost everyone satisfies with a high school diploma. What makes it distinctive is not the level of regulation but the existence of a second road out of it.

Compare the rest: Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, Ohio, Washington, New York and Pennsylvania. For what to teach, start with homeschool curriculum in the USA. If a test comes back below the fourth stanine, catching up after falling behind and helping with math at home without a tutor are the practical response, and interests as a gateway to the curriculum is how the subject list you filed gets covered without being a checklist.

The honest summary

Two dates. August 15 for the notice, August 1 for the evidence. Diarize both in July, because they are eleven months apart and neither renews itself.

Keep the notice short: a list of subjects and one line stating your qualification option is what the statute asks for. And decide which evidence route you are on before the year starts, not in July. If it is the test, book it. If it is the evaluation letter, keep dated work all year and line up an evaluator early. The fourth stanine is a lower bar than it sounds, and the evaluation route means a child who does not test well is not thereby a problem.

Sprout Lessons builds standards-aligned lessons for grades K–12, so the evidence and the teaching are the same work. Start free.

This guide summarizes Code of Virginia § 22.1-254.1, the religious exemption at § 22.1-254, and Virginia Department of Education guidance as at 21 August 2026. It is general information, not legal advice. Home instruction is administered by your division superintendent and the religious exemption is determined by the school board: confirm current requirements with your division or at doe.virginia.gov before you file.

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