Homeschool Requirements in Oregon

Oregon asks for a few particular things. A short list of real requirements, none of them heavy on its own. The dates undo more families than the paperwork ever does, so put them in the calendar in the same week you begin, alongside everything else a household is carrying. Do that and the rest of this page becomes reading instead of worry.

What you send in, and when it is due

Written notice goes to the superintendent of the Education Service District (ESD) in which the child resides, within 10 days of withdrawing the child from public/private school or of beginning to teach the child at home. Notice must include the child’s name, address, birthdate, and the name of the school last attended or the district of residence. A new notice is required whenever the family moves to a different ESD. This is a one-time notice. It is not filed every year.

Days and hours

None. Oregon sets no minimum number of instructional days or hours for homeschoolers.

Subjects the law names

None. Oregon does not mandate any subjects or curriculum for homeschoolers; the state’s academic content standards are explicitly optional.

What you keep

No state-mandated recordkeeping. Parents are not required to keep or submit attendance logs, portfolios, lesson plans, or grades. Practically, parents must retain their child’s standardized test results because the ESD superintendent may request them, and should keep their own transcript/credit records for high school.

Testing and evaluation

Standardized testing is required at the end of grades 3, 5, 8, and 10 (ORS 339.035; OAR 581-021-0026). Test must be from the ODE-approved list (e.g., Iowa Tests, Stanford, CAT/TerraNova), administered by a “qualified neutral person” not related to the child by blood or marriage, at the parent’s expense; results are due by August 15 of the applicable year. Children withdrawn from school are not tested until at least 18 months after withdrawal; children who never attended school take their first test before the end of grade 3. One nuance matters: scores are kept by the parent and submitted to the ESD only if the ESD superintendent requests them. If a score falls below the 15th percentile, retesting is required within a year, and persistent decline can lead the ESD to require a licensed-teacher supervisor (at parent expense) or order school attendance for up to 12 months. Students who participate in interscholastic activities must test annually and submit results. Children with disabilities may use an alternative plan under OAR 581-021-0029.

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

No state homeschool diploma. Parents issue their own transcript and diploma; Oregon does not accredit or validate them. ODE explicitly notes that public schools are not required to (and generally may not) grant credit toward a public-school diploma for homeschool coursework, so a student who re-enrolls late in high school may face credit loss or validation testing, plan transfers carefully. ODE points homeschoolers to the GED as a “universally recognized” credential, and some employers, trade programs, apprenticeships, and the military prefer it over a parent-issued diploma. Community-college dual enrollment is a common way to generate third-party-verifiable credits. Homeschoolers may participate in public-school interscholastic activities but must then test annually (ORS 339.460).

One label on that transcript is not yours to write, whatever Oregon allows. What does not belong on a homeschool transcript.

Where this comes from

Statute: Or. Rev. Stat. 339.030(1)(c)-(g) (compulsory attendance exemption); ORS 339.035 (notice and examination); ORS 339.460 (participation in activities); Or. Admin. R. 581-021-0026 (examination of children taught by parent); OAR 581-021-0029 (children with disabilities)

Source: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors339.html

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.