Homeschool Requirements in Washington: Qualifying the Parent

Washington is the state that qualifies the parent rather than inspecting the program. Before you file anything you have to fall into one of four categories: 45 college quarter credit hours, a parent-qualifying course, supervision by a certificated teacher, or a superintendent’s determination that you are sufficiently qualified. Once you clear that bar, the annual burden is a signed declaration of intent by September 15 and an assessment that nobody collects. You keep it. That combination, a real gate at the entrance and almost nothing after it, is unique among the states covered so far.

Checked against RCW 28A.200.010, RCW 28A.225.010(4), RCW 28A.195.010 and Washington OSPI home-based instruction guidance as at 19 August 2026. Declarations are filed with your district, so confirm local process with the superintendent’s office.

Washington at a glance

The four ways to qualify, and how to pick one

This is the step to sort out before September, because it is the only part of Washington law that can actually stop you.

1. 45 college-level quarter credit hours, or the equivalent in semester hours. Any subject. This is the route most parents with any college attendance already satisfy, and it is worth checking a transcript before assuming you do not: 45 quarter credits is roughly three quarters of full-time study, not a degree.
2. A course in home-based instruction at a postsecondary institution or a vocational-technical institute. These run specifically to satisfy this statute, are short, and are the standard answer for a parent who does not have the credits.
3. Supervision by a certificated person. The certificated teacher plans objectives with you, maintains a monthly minimum averaging one contact hour per week with the child, and evaluates progress. One certificated person may supervise no more than 30 children.
4. Deemed sufficiently qualified by the superintendent of the district where the child resides.

Three of these are objective and one is not. Routes 1 and 2 are documents you either have or can obtain; route 3 is a contract with a teacher. Route 4 is a person’s judgment, and it is the only place in Washington homeschool law where anyone exercises discretion over you. Where you have any realistic path to routes 1, 2 or 3, take it, because they convert an annual relationship into a one-time fact.

The declaration of intent

Filed annually, by September 15, or within two weeks of the beginning of any public school quarter, trimester or semester, which is the provision that lets you start mid-year. It goes to the superintendent of the district where you reside, or to a nonresident district that has accepted the transfer.

The declaration states:

• the child’s name and age,
• whether a certificated person will be supervising the instruction.

That is all. Like Ohio’s notification, this is an announcement rather than a plan, and the district does not approve it.

The eleven subject areas

Instruction covers: occupational education, science, mathematics, language, social studies, history, health, reading, writing, spelling, and the development of an appreciation of art and music.

Two of those deserve a note. Occupational education is not a subject most homeschool curricula ship with, and it is first on the list. Read it broadly rather than anxiously: it covers career awareness, practical skills and work-related learning, and a teenager running a small business or working a Saturday job is doing it. Language appears alongside reading, writing and spelling, which are listed separately, so the list is finer-grained than most and a plan that says “English” is answering four items at once.

The hours, and what the word average is doing

Washington ties home-based instruction to the annual average total program hour offerings required of approved private schools: 1,000 hours for grades 1 through 12, and 450 hours for kindergarten.

Note the phrasing. It is an annual average across a program, not a per-child audited count, and no one collects an hours log from you. Compare New York, where the 900 or 990 hours are reported quarterly by subject and the number is the report. In Washington the figure is a planning benchmark you hold yourself to.

Practically, 1,000 hours is about five and a half hours a day across 180 days, and the usual caution applies: this is instructional time, not seat time, and one-to-one teaching covers ground faster than a classroom.

The annual assessment nobody collects

Each year the child either sits a standardized achievement test from the State Board of Education’s approved list, administered by a qualified individual, or receives a written annual academic progress assessment from a certificated person currently working in education.

Then the part that surprises people: the result is not filed with the district or the state. It becomes part of the child’s permanent record, which you hold. It is forwarded when the child transfers to another public or private school, along with immunization records.

There is no percentile threshold, no probation and no monitoring trigger. What the statute says instead is that if the results show the child is not making reasonable progress consistent with his or her age or stage of development, the parent shall make a good faith effort to remedy any deficiency.

That is a genuinely different design from North Dakota’s 50th percentile or New York’s 33rd. Washington sets the standard against the child rather than against a national distribution, and hands the response to you. It is also the reason to take the assessment seriously even though nobody reads it: it is the only external check in the system, so if it is not useful to you, it is not useful to anyone.

What happens if you do not comply

Worth stating plainly, because Washington is unusual here too. Failure to meet these duties is treated as the child’s failure to attend school without valid justification.

In other words there is no separate homeschool enforcement track, no probation ladder and no remediation plan. Non-compliance drops you back into truancy law. That makes the September 15 declaration more consequential than its two lines of content suggest: it is the document that makes your child’s absence from school lawful.

Records and evidence: what to keep

1. Your qualification evidence. The transcript showing 45 quarter credits, the course certificate, the supervision agreement, or the superintendent’s determination. Keep it permanently, since it underpins every subsequent year.
2. A copy of each declaration of intent, with proof of the filing date.
3. Every annual assessment, filed by year. These are the child’s permanent records and you are their custodian, which is a real obligation rather than a filing habit.
4. Coverage notes against the eleven areas. Occupational education is the one people forget, so note it when it happens.
5. A rough hours record against the 1,000 hour benchmark.

Because the assessment is the only external check and you are the one who has to act on it, the useful record is one organized by what was actually covered. Lesson materials that name their standard give you that for free, and make the progress assessment a matter of reviewing evidence rather than recalling a year. Sprout Lessons builds standards-aligned lessons for grades K–12. Try it free.

How Washington compares

The distinction worth carrying away: most states regulate the program and let anyone run it. Washington regulates the person and then largely leaves the program alone. If you already hold 45 college credits, Washington is one of the easier states in the country to homeschool in. If you do not, it is the only state covered here where the first task is qualifying yourself rather than filing a form.

Compare the rest: Ohio, North Dakota, Vermont, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. For what to teach, start with homeschool curriculum in the USA. Since the annual assessment is yours to act on, catching up after falling behind and helping with math at home without a tutor are the practical follow-through, and interests as a gateway to the curriculum covers occupational education more naturally than any curriculum package will.

The honest summary

Sort out your qualification route first, because everything else is easy and that one thing can stop you. If you have 45 college quarter credits, you are done. If not, a parent qualifying course is short and inexpensive, and it beats an annual conversation with a superintendent.

After that: declare by September 15, cover eleven areas including the occupational education one everyone forgets, aim at 1,000 hours as a planning benchmark rather than an audit, and commission an assessment each year that is genuinely useful to you, because you are the only person who will ever read it.

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

This guide summarizes RCW 28A.200.010, RCW 28A.225.010(4), RCW 28A.195.010 and Washington OSPI guidance as at 19 August 2026. It is general information, not legal advice. OSPI publishes a fuller guide to home-based instruction, and declarations are handled by your district: confirm current requirements before you file.

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