Colorado's Homeschool Law In a Nutshell
This is a rather in-depth (but simplfied) explanation of what CRS 22-33-104 and 22-33-104.5 legal mumbo jumbo requires of homeschoolers. It's not intended as legal advice, however. I strongly suggest you read and familiarize yourself with the Colorado statute. Knowing your rights is your responsibility. And it's also the best protection you have!
CAIL: Colorado Academy of Independent Learners
Have the support and security of a private school while homeschooling. Kerry is a homeschool veteran who offers curriculum consultations, record-keeping and accredited high school diplomas.
The Colorado Homeschool Law
The full text of the law. Read, print, save.
Sample Notice of Intent (NOI)
My free, downloadable form. Use it as a template to make your own Notice of Intent.
What ages does Colorado's law apply to?
I just pulled my 5-year-old out of kindergarten. Since he's not 6 yet, do I have to file an NOI?
I'm new to Colorado. How soon do I need to file?
Must I file a new NOI every year?
What information am I required to include?
Where can I find a sample of how the NOI should be written?
Where do I file my Colorado NOI?
Do I have to fill out the school district's NOI form that I just got in the mail?
Does my homeschool year have to begin and end at the same time as the local school district?
My child attends a private, parochial or independent school. Do I still have to file an NOI?
My child takes academic classes elsewhere more than half the time. Are we still 'homeschoolers'?
Do I have to keep records?
What subjects do I have to teach?
When does my child graduate?
Where do we get a diploma?
Where do I get the accredited curriculum like the public schools use?
Does my child need to be tested? Or evaluated? And what's the difference?
Where do I find the tests and/or an evaluator?
My child's been suspended from school. Can I homeschool her?
Can my child take sports, sing in the choir or play in the school band?
What ages does Colorado's law apply to?
Effective July 2008, Colorado's Home School Statute applies to all children between the ages of 6-16. If your child will turn 6 by August 1, you must file A Notice of Intent to Homeschool. However, you do not need to actually BEGIN homeschooling until age 7. (See CRS 22-33-104.5) .pdf
Every year thereafter, from ages 7-16, you will need to file a new NOI. It must be sent in 14 days before you begin your homeschool program.
For teenagers, remember, compulsory school age ends at age 16 in Colorado. If your child will turn 16 more than 14 days before your homeschool year starts, don't bother with an NOI. It's moot, nada, no longer required.
I just pulled my 5-year-old out of kindergarten. Since he's not 6 yet, do I have to file an NOI?
This is an exception to the rule, and the short answer is yes. Once your child has been enrolled in school, they've been processed and counted, sorted and filed. If you take them out to homeschool, the district will wonder where the child has gone. They may even notify Social Services or a truant officer if they're not sure. So make 'em happy and file that simple paperwork! It keeps you legal and out of hot water.
I'm new to Colorado. When do I need to file?
If you've recently moved to Colorado, submit your NOI as soon as possible. The state is understanding of moving craziness and rarely enforces the 14-day notice period.
Must I file a new NOI every year?
If you continue to homeschool, yes.
Always keep a copy of your yearly NOI for your own records. Districts are full of humans, and humans have been known to lose documents.
What information am I required to include?
All NOIs must contain the following:
a) The full name, address and age of the child you will be home schooling.
b) The number of days and hours you will be teaching that year. Per Colorado Revised Statute (CSR), you write this down as "688 hours (or) 4 hours per day, 172 days per year."
c) The signature of the primary homeschooling parent.
And that's it.
Where can I find a sample of how the NOI should be written?
There is no "standard form", but RMEC's Sample Notice of Intent form can be downloaded here.
Where do I file my Notice of Intent?
Send it to any school district within the state. Here's a list of districts to choose from. You do not have to submit your NOI to the district you live in. But, if you file it elsewhere, send a note to your home district. That way, everybody knows what's going on and nobody gets cranky.
Also, please remember that once you file, your child's local school is out of the picture. In other words, you don't have to communicate with them anymore.
Do I have to fill out the school district's NOI form that I just got in the mail?
Heavens no. Especially if it asks for more information than is required by law. Districts can send out all the forms and letters they want (wasting our tax dollars in the process) -- but guess what? You, legally, DO NOT have to fill them out. In fact, if you complete one, it just encourages them to decimate another national forest and mail out more paperwork blizzards. Think green. Save a tree. Just ignore them.
But they're saying I HAVE to fill out it out!
Oh, horsepucky. Mail it back, along with a note asking that they send you a copy of Colorado's current homeschool statute, highlighting the paragraph that says they have the legal right to require such a thing. There IS no such provision. Districts have been doing such nonsense since I started, and they'll continue to do it until the year 4000, if we don't keep ourselves informed and stand up for the homeschooling rights our predecessors fought so hard to win.
Does my homeschool year have to begin and end at the same time as the local school district?
No. Your home school program may begin at any time during the year. It's not tied to the traditional 'school year'. It's not bound by when your local school stops and starts, either. The schools' start/stop dates are up to them. Your start/stop dates are completely up to you. We used to start in early October and take the entire month of December off. As long as we got in our 688 hours of learning each year, what months we did it didn't matter.
My child attends a private, parochial or independent school. Do I have to file an NOI?
It depends on how much of the teaching you do.
If your child is taking outside classes which total less than 1/2 of their yearly required hours (49% or less), that means you're doing the majority of the teaching. In this case, you must file an NOI.
But, if the school is providing more than 1/2 of the instruction (51% or more), then your child is considered a private school student under Colorado law. In that case, the school will take care of all the paperwork. And there's no need for you to file a Notice of Intent.
If that seems confusing, think of it this way: Who will be issuing your child their diploma? Your homeschool -- or the other school?
My child takes academic classes elsewhere more than half the time. Are we still 'homeschoolers'?
Legally? No. You're not determining your child's curriculum; the state or private school is. The school also gets to count your child as an enrolled student, so they're 'claiming' them and you're not. A child simply can't be both a homeschooler and a public/private schooler at the same time.
Do I have to keep records?
Yes. The only records you're required by law to keep are:
Your child's attendance records.
Their immunization records, or their opt-out document(s).
Their standardized test or evaluation results.
What subjects do I have to teach?
The subjects you're required to cover are: Reading, writing, speaking, math, history, civics, literature, science, and the constitution of the United States.
Having said that, understand that Colorado doesn't mandate how or when you teach them. You can cover them at the age of 6 or 16 -- or anywhere in between. And you can use any means you like: field trips, volunteering, DVDs from Netflix, Grandpa's meandering stories, your kid's current Wii infatuation, textbooks, library books, comic books, boy scout merit badge projects, etc. For more ideas you might want to check out What Else Counts As Curriculum?
When does my child graduate?
When you homeschool in Colorado, you are in charge. You are your own school district, principal and classroom teacher. Simply put, everything is up to you. Ergo, when your child graduates is up to you. And that will be when you decide he's completed his high school requirements.
Where do we get a diploma?
Again, from you. Name your homeschool, go out to your favorite office supply store, pick up some blank certificates, and design a diploma on your trusty computer. That's what I did. Ann Zeise did too, and you can take a look at her template here. Or visit Homeschool Diploma and they'll create one for you.
It all this legal?
Absolutely. There is nothing in the homeschool statute that says we can't issue our own diploma. Think of it this way: The state trusts us with homeschooling our offspring through high school. Right? So it naturally follows that we're also trusted to have enough common sense to know when they're done.
Where do I get the accredited curriculum like the public schools use?
In Colorado, public, private and homeschool law are 3 completely separate things. What's required of private school students isn't required of homeschoolers. What may be required at a public school doesn't apply to homeschoolers either. And even if it did, contrary to popular belief, there's still no such thing as 'a standard, statewide diploma' or 'a statewide accredited curriculum'. Yes, there are the CSAP tests, but the Dept of Education doesn't dictate the curriculum the districts must use to pass that test or any other. Each individual district decides their own curriculum. District XYZ might decide that 2 years of Algebra is essential to graduate. District ABC may disagree, thinking instead that 3 years of foreign language is more important. However, both districts issue valid high school diplomas that are accepted nationwide.
The DOE also doesn't mandate statewide graduation requirements. The individual school districts wouldn't stand for it; they've always been autonomous and they want to keep it that way.
For what it's worth, my boys and I named our home school and I, as their principal, issued them their diplomas. They're now adults who are either in college and/or working. Not a single soul has so much as blinked or questioned that nice piece of paper I designed in between loads of laundry.
Come to think of it, have you ever stopped to question the validity of your own diploma? Me neither.
Does my child need to be tested? Or evaluated? And what's the difference?
All homeschooled students in Colorado are required to take a nationally standardized achievement test OR be evaluated by a Qualified Person, every other year, during the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 11th grades. Please keep in mind that grade level has nothing to do with the child's age. Example: my youngest was 7yo and at first grade level. Over the summer his brain had a surprise growth spurt and he advanced 2 years. By the fall when we started school again, he was up to the third grade level. So obviously (and unexpectedly), the child now needed to be tested or evaluated, even though he was still only 7. (Most third graders are 9.). Moral of the story: age and grade level are not related.
What's the difference between tests and evaluations? Nationally standardized tests are pretty much what you think they are: a white booklet, a No. 2 pencil, don't start until I tell you to, and fill in the little circle bubbles to indicate your answer. Evaluations are a little friendlier and not as stressful. You and your child meet the evaluator at an agreed-upon location (most often, your home) and the person doing the evaluating talks to your child, asking to see books they've read, worksheets they've completed, lego structures they've built, etc. By law, the goal of evaluations is just 'to determine if the child has made academic progress'.
Evaluations do require the services of a Qualified Person. A 'Qualified Person' is defined as a certified teacher, a private school teacher, a licensed psychologist, or a person with a gradute degree in education.
Could you be your child's Qualified Person? Yes. If you are a certified teacher. Or a private school teacher. Or happened to be a licensed psychologist. Or if you had a graduate degree -- in Education. A graduate degree in any other area doesn't count. Sorry!
A copy of the test or evaluation results must be submitted to either a private, parochial or independent school within the state, or any school district within Colorado. Example: Either file a copy of the results with a school (preferably with a homeschooler-owned school such as CAIL or West River Academy), or with any Colorado school district you choose. Make sure you keep a copy of the results for your own records.
If your child's composite score falls at, or below, the 13th percentile, the school district will require your child to be retested. After retesting, if your child's score still falls at, or below, the 13th percentile, the district will require that you place the child into a public, independent or parochial school until the next testing period.
Where do I find the tests and/or an evaluator?
I'm working on compiling a list for you. In the meantime, email me.
My child's been suspended from school. Can I homeschool her?
If your child has been declared habitually truant within the past six months (not just 'warned', 'suspended' or 'expelled' --- those aren't 'officially truant'), you will need to submit both an NOI and a written description of your child's curriculum to the district. The curriculum description will only be required the first year. If you continue to homeschool beyond that first year, you need to file an NOI annually, as you normally would.
Can my child take sports, sing in the choir or play in the school band?
Yes. All homeschooled students may participate in any extracurricular or interscholastic activity offered by a public school in their district, as long as they comply with the requirements set down by the school district. Homeschoolers may be charged up to 150% of the normal fee. This increase was added into our law during the 1997 legislative session.
Please remember, if you enroll your child in a private school, parochial, or independent school within the state of Colorado, these homeschooling parameters will not apply to you. Your child will be considered a private school student, rather than a homeschooled one. Please check with your school for detailed legal clarifications.
If you have further questions, Cindy is available for a few private consultations.
Everyone everywhere is welcome to print this page for their own reference, or link it to their site. All these wonderful little graphics on this page are complements of Cartoon Cottage.
updated August 2008
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-- George Bernard Shaw
My schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned at home by myself.
