Homeschool Requirements in North Dakota

North Dakota asks more of a family than most places do. There is more of it here than in most places, and the deadlines hold. That is a discouraging thing to read in the week you have decided to teach your children yourself, and it should not put you off. None of it is beyond an ordinary household once it is written down in one place, which is what this page is for. Read the dates first. The rest can wait until they are on the calendar.

What you send in, and when it is due

Annual statement of intent to the superintendent of the child’s resident school district (or county superintendent if none), filed at least 14 days before beginning home education, or within 14 days of establishing residence in a district, and once each year thereafter. Must include child’s name/address/DOB/grade, supervising parent’s name/address/qualifications, immunization record, proof of child’s identity (birth certificate or comparable), any public-school courses/extracurriculars requested, and any claimed testing exemption. NDCC 15.1-23-02.

Days and hours

At least 4 hours per day for a minimum of 175 days per year (NDCC 15.1-23-04).

Subjects the law names

Those subjects required by law to be taught to public school students (NDCC 15.1-23-04, referencing NDCC 15.1-21): English language arts, mathematics, social studies (incl. US Constitution, history, government, geography; North Dakota studies in grades 4 and 8), science (incl. agriculture), physical education, and health. High school adds literature/composition/speech, lab science, US history/civics/economics/personal finance, and a foreign language, fine art, or CTE.

The law names the subjects. It does not name the course titles a registrar will read, and Bible is where that gap costs families most. Booking Bible as a real subject on a transcript.

What you keep

Parent must maintain an annual record of courses taken and the child’s academic progress assessments, including any standardized achievement test results (NDCC 15.1-23-05). Records are kept by the parent; not routinely submitted except test scores.

Testing and evaluation

Standardized achievement test in grades 4, 6, 8, and 10, either the test used by the resident district or a nationally normed test at parent request; must be administered by a licensed/approved teacher, in the home learning environment or (on parent request) at a public school; results reported to the superintendent (NDCC 15.1-23-08 through 15.1-23-11). Exemptions available (NDCC 15.1-23-09) if the parent objects on philosophical/moral/religious grounds and holds a baccalaureate degree, is a licensed teacher, or has met the national teacher exam cutoff. Score below the 30th percentile triggers a multidisciplinary assessment for a learning disability and, if none, a remediation plan until the child reaches the 30th percentile or shows a year’s progress. Parents without a diploma/GED must be monitored by a certified teacher for the first two years; monitoring continues if the child scores below the 50th percentile.

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.

What an evaluator or a test result gets attached to is the folder beneath the transcript. The Records Pack has the portfolio index with its evaluator summary, editable, in both editions.

The diploma and the transcript

North Dakota is unusual: NDCC 15.1-23-17 lets the resident school district, an approved nonpublic high school, or the Center for Distance Education issue a high school diploma to a home-educated student who meets that entity’s graduation requirements, provided the parent submits a description of course material covered in each high school subject, a description of course objectives and how they were met, and a grades 9-12 transcript. A parent-issued diploma is common in practice but is not the statutory pathway to a state-recognized diploma. Parents pursuing this should keep detailed syllabi and transcripts from 9th grade forward.

Where the law names religion

North Dakota tests in grades 4, 6, 8 and 10, and NDCC 15.1-23-09 offers an exemption from that testing to a parent who objects on philosophical, moral or religious grounds. The objection on its own is not enough. It has to sit alongside a baccalaureate degree, a teaching licence, or a score at or above the national teacher exam cutoff. Read that section before you count on the exemption.

Where this comes from

Statute: N.D. Cent. Code ch. 15.1-23 (esp. §§ 15.1-23-02, -03, -04, -05, -08, -09, -11, -12, -17); private-school alternative under N.D. Cent. Code ch. 15.1-06.

Source: https://www.nd.gov/dpi/sites/www/files/documents/SAO/Home%20Education/t15-1c23.pdf

Last reviewed: July 2026. The day is not recorded.

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.