North Dakota Home Education Statutory Filing and Monitoring Rules

Families choosing to direct their children’s education from home in North Dakota must navigate a specific set of statutory filing mandates, instructional requirements, and monitoring pathways managed through state guidelines.

Filing Requirements and Qualifying Documentation

Submitting a home education statement requires precise documentation. Parents must provide the child’s name, address, date of birth, and grade level, alongside the supervising parent’s name, address, and qualifications. Additionally, filings must include details on any public-school courses the child plans to take and the district offering them, as well as any extracurricular activities joined through a district or approved nonpublic school.

The submission packet also requires a copy of the child’s immunization record or qualifying exemption documentation, alongside proof of the child’s identity. North Dakota accepts a certified birth certificate, a certified transcript or similar records from a previous school, or other documentary evidence the superintendent considers appropriate. Current state forms ask newly filing parents to attach supporting documentation verifying a high school diploma or GED, while also providing the monitoring section and testing-exemption choices.

Supervision Pathways and Monitoring Standards

The person supervising home education must be the child’s parent or legal guardian. Supervision involves choosing materials, determining the educational approach, and overseeing how instruction is delivered. A parent possessing a high school diploma or GED qualifies to supervise, while parents without either credential may still supervise under the statutory monitoring pathway.

Monitoring generally lasts for the first two years and is carried out by a licensed or approved teacher. Should a student on that route earn a national standardized achievement test basic composite score under the fiftieth percentile, oversight persists for a minimum of one extra school year and until the pupil attains a score at or above that fiftieth percentile mark. Observers submit progress updates twice per school year, dedicating an average of one hour weekly to the initial child and parent, plus an extra thirty minutes each month for every additional home-schooled student.

Instructional Time, Core Subjects, and High School Credits

State regulations mandate at least four hours of instruction each day for at least 175 days each year. Home education programs must incorporate the subjects required by law for public-school students. For elementary and middle-school instruction, this list covers English language arts—including reading, composition, creative writing, grammar, and spelling—alongside mathematics and social studies.

In grades four and eight, social studies programs of study are required to cover the United States Constitution, United States history, geography, government, and North Dakota studies. Science instruction must include agriculture, complemented by physical education and health topics covering physiology, hygiene, disease control, and the effects of alcohol, tobacco, and narcotics. Computer science, including cybersecurity, is also mandatory.

For high school, families use NDDPI’s current graduation guidance to plan credits. Home-educated high school students follow the state’s minimum graduation requirements, which mandate four credits of English, three each in mathematics, science, and social studies, and one credit in physical education or health. Pupils also finish three units across foreign language, fine arts, or vocational and technical education, one unit in computer science or cybersecurity, alongside five elective credits.