Homeschool Requirements in Iowa

Iowa asks very little of you. You did not bring your children home for the sake of a form. Here is the form anyway. Begin with the first heading: what you send in, if anything, and the day it is due. There is not much after that. Every claim is cited at the foot, so you can hold it against the code rather than take our word for it.

What you send in, and when it is due

What you file depends entirely on which of four pathways you choose, and no other light-touch state is built this way. (1) Independent Private Instruction (IPI): no forms, no notice, no reporting, no district contact. (2) Competent Private Instruction (CPI) Option #2 with the reporting opt-out: nothing is filed and the parent answers to no one. (3) CPI Option #2 with dual enrollment or optional reporting, and (4) CPI Option #1, supervised by someone holding a current Iowa teaching license, including a district Homeschool Assistance Program: both file Form A with the district of residence each year for each child, due September 1, or September 15 with an HSAP. The rules also set a separate trigger for the parent-provided option, a report to the district of residence within 30 days of commencing instruction. Mid-year starters get some slack: if you move into the district or withdraw from an accredited school after the September deadline you have 14 days to dual enroll or ask to join an HSAP. Form A is a public document, but the district may not release immunization information, special education status, instructional program information, the number of days under CPI, any information about the licensed teacher providing or supervising instruction, or any assessment, portfolio evaluation or correspondence-school record without parental consent or statutory authorization. For IPI, a district superintendent, or the director of the Department of Education, may ask in writing only for the primary instructor’s name, the location of instruction, the name of the authority responsible, and the names of students enrolled. Nothing about curriculum: the Department is explicit that a district may not ask whether the family is providing instruction in the four required areas. The reporting opt-out is not available to a family that requests services from a district or AEA, including instructional materials, an HSAP, dual enrollment, open enrollment or special education services (Iowa Admin. Code 281-31.7(5)). Even where no notice is required, withdraw in writing from an enrolled district so a truancy referral never starts.

Days and hours

CPI: the Department of Education applies instruction on a daily basis for at least 148 days per school year, with at least 37 days in each quarter, to both options. Read the statute closely and the 148 days attach only to the licensed-practitioner option at Iowa Code § 299A.1(2)(a)(1); the parent-provided option at § 299A.1(2)(a)(2) carries no day count. Plan for 148 either way, because that is what a district will expect. IPI: no day or hour requirement, only compulsory education under Iowa Code ch. 299. Compulsory attendance age runs from 6 to under 16 by September 15, and a child enrolled in a school district or accredited nonpublic school who turns 16 on or after September 15 remains of compulsory age through the end of that school calendar (§ 299.1A(1)).

Subjects the law names

IPI: mathematics, reading and language arts, science, and social studies are required by statute for enrolled students in all grade levels (Iowa Code § 299A.1(2)(b)), but the district is expressly forbidden from asking whether they are being taught. CPI: the Iowa Department of Education treats the same four as encouraged rather than strictly enumerated, and states that it does not review, recommend or require a specific curriculum; the reporting subjects for adequate progress are reading/language arts and math, plus science in grades 5, 8 and 10. Curriculum choice is entirely the family’s, and the Department neither reviews nor prescribes it.

What you keep

No state-mandated portfolio or log for IPI or for CPI Option #2 with the opt-out. Form A filers should keep a copy for each child each year; the district and the AEA keep copies for five years. CPI Option #2 reporting families keep whatever backs their annual proof of adequate progress, whether that is assessment results, a portfolio, or an accredited-school transcript. Keep your own course, hour and grade records regardless. The Iowa DOE holds no completion records and cannot verify high school completion, so transcripts and college admission rest on what you kept.

Testing and evaluation

Only CPI Option #2 with reporting requires it. Those students, other than a student past compulsory attendance age, must show “adequate annual progress” in reading/language arts and mathematics, plus science in grades 5, 8 and 10 per the Department’s handbook. Get the definition right, because it is stricter than it is usually reported. Iowa Code § 299A.6(4) defines adequate progress as evaluation scores “above the thirtieth percentile, nationally normed, in each of the areas of reading, mathematics, and language arts, and which indicate either that the child has made six months’ progress from the previous evaluation results or that the child is at or above grade level for the child’s age.” So it is above the 30th percentile, in each area rather than as a composite, and the percentile test is not an alternative to the progress test; both have to be satisfied. For grade levels six and above the same subsection adds science and social studies on the same terms. Three methods count: a Department-approved standardized assessment (Iowa Test of Basic Skills Forms E and F, Terra Nova 3rd Edition Forms C and D, Stanford Achievement Test 10th Edition, or the ISASP, in the approved editions); a portfolio reviewed by a single evaluator designated by the parent, approved by the superintendent of the local school district or the superintendent’s designee, and holding a valid Iowa practitioner license appropriate to the grade level; or a report card or transcript from an accredited correspondence school, where a passing grade in all content areas requiring assessment is deemed evidence of adequate progress. If you use the portfolio route the areas differ from the test route: reading, language arts and mathematics in grades 1 through 5, and those three plus science and social studies in grades 6 through 12. Testing must be finished by May 31 and results are due to the district of residence and to the Department of Education by August 1. Parents generally may not proctor the standardized test unless the publisher qualifies them. A district or AEA must administer the annual evaluation at no cost if asked. CPI Option #1 students may test at no cost but do not have to, and results are not reported, though an HSAP may require testing as a local condition. IPI and CPI opt-out families face no assessment at all, and IPI families pay for their own testing if they want it. If an evaluation shows inadequate progress, § 299A.6(1) requires the child to attend an accredited public or nonpublic school at the start of the next school year unless the child retakes a different form or another approved evaluation and passes, an evaluator documents adequate performance, or the Department’s director approves continuing under a plan for remediation.

An assessment is read against what you wrote down while it was happening, which is the part a morning hour tends to lose. Putting morning time and the church year on a record without inflating it.

The diploma and the transcript

House File 2754, signed May 12, 2026, is the change that matters, and it took effect on enactment rather than the following July, so it is already in force. New Iowa Code § 299A.13 provides that a student who completes a program of secondary education under CPI or IPI “shall be deemed to have completed a high school education”, that the responsible parent or instructor may issue a diploma, final transcript or other written documentation, and that such a document “shall be accepted under the laws of this state in the same manner as a high school diploma … issued by a school district or an accredited nonpublic school for all purposes”, naming admission to postsecondary education or training, eligibility for employment, occupational licensure, and access to state and local programs and benefits. It bars the state, its subdivisions and any other person from denying or restricting a right solely because the diploma was issued that way, and provides that such a student shall not be required to obtain a high school equivalency diploma or other alternative credential. The rule reaches back: it applies to documentation issued before, on, or after the effective date. The same act removed the four-unrelated-student cap and the no-tuition restriction on IPI, which legalizes paid cottage schools, micro-schools and parent-led learning communities without pulling in public school oversight. It also let parents execute any document verifying their child’s placement, full-time or part-time status, or grades under CPI or IPI, and simplified Form A so a family submits either an outline of the course of study or texts that will be used, not both. It did not touch the health paperwork: Iowa Code § 299.4(1) still says a parent placing a child under CPI for the first time “shall also provide the district with evidence that the child has had the immunizations required under section 139A.8, and, if the child is elementary school age, a blood lead test in accordance with section 135.105D”, so expect to file it with your first Form A. Beyond that, the Iowa Department of Education issues no diplomas and keeps no completion records, and states that it cannot verify completion of high school for employment purposes; the family decides when the student is finished and may issue a certificate of completion. A district diploma stays discretionary, so start that conversation in 8th grade. To receive one the student must meet every state and local graduation requirement: 1/2 unit financial literacy, 1 unit PE, 3 units science, 3 units social studies including 1/2 unit U.S. government and 1 unit American history, 3 units mathematics, 4 units English language arts, and a citizenship test at 60 percent or better beginning 2026-27, where a unit means 120 hours of instruction, though the district decides how many credits a unit earns. Credit for homeschool coursework is a local decision even with an accredited curriculum. CPI students may dual-enroll for academics, activities and special education and may use Senior Year Plus. IPI students are limited to an approved driver education course, annual achievement testing, and concurrent enrollment, and may not dual-enroll. A parent may not use dual enrollment to enroll a child in all courses but one. Iowa’s Education Savings Account program is universal, but Iowa Code § 257.11B conditions payment on attending a nonpublic school, so home-instructed students are not eligible. The Tuition and Textbook Tax Credit is available.

Deciding what counted as a course, before any of it reaches a transcript, is its own piece of work. Awarding credit for theology, apologetics and church history.

A required course becomes something a reader can weigh once there is a paragraph under it. The Course Description Library is 131 of them in one Word file you edit.

Where this comes from

Statute: Iowa Code ch. 299A (esp. §§ 299A.1(2)(b) & (c), 299A.2, 299A.3, 299A.4, 299A.6, 299A.8, 299A.9), Iowa Code ch. 299 (compulsory education, esp. §§ 299.1A and 299.4), § 257.11B (education savings accounts), § 422.12 (tuition and textbook credit); Iowa Admin. Code ch. 281-31 (esp. 31.3(2), 31.4(1), 31.4(4), 31.7(5), 31.7(6), 31.7(7)); 2026 Iowa Acts, House File 2754, div. XIII (signed May 12, 2026, effective upon enactment).

Source: https://educate.iowa.gov/pk-12/educational-choice/homeschooling

Last reviewed: July 2026, on the 26th.

Homeschool law changes, and a page like this goes quietly out of date. Before a filing deadline, read the code above yourself. If we have fallen behind we would much rather hear it from you than have you find out at a district office.

All fifty states and the District of Columbia, each one citing the law it came from.

Filing is one part of it. Keeping the record is the other, and that is what our Records System is for: the editable transcript with the GPA already working, 131 academic course descriptions, the Bible and theology descriptions, and this same cited summary for every state and DC. Protestant and Catholic editions. Thirty-nine dollars, one household, however many children you teach.