Guides · July 31, 2026•9 min read

How to Homeschool in Georgia: Keep Everything, Send One Thing

Georgia is the most prescriptive state in this series on paper. Named subjects, 180 days at four and a half hours each, a standardized test every three years, a written progress report for every subject, and a diploma requirement for the teaching parent. Then it collects exactly one document a year. Understanding that gap between what is required and what is submitted is most of what you need to homeschool here confidently.

Georgia asks a great deal and collects almost none of it

Retention rather than submission is the model, and it is the source of nearly every misunderstanding about this state. Families send test scores and attendance to their district unprompted, start a correspondence nobody wanted, and conclude Georgia is heavily supervised. It is not.

There is a second route worth knowing about. You can instead enroll your child in a private or umbrella school, often called a cover school, which handles the administration for you. That makes your child a private school student rather than a home study student, and it swaps the state’s requirements for that school’s. Everything below describes the home study program, which is what most Georgia families use.

The Declaration of Intent, the one thing you send

You file it online with the Georgia Department of Education. Since 2013 it goes directly to the state rather than through your local district, which is another place old guidance misleads people.

The deadline is within 30 days of establishing your program, and then by 1 September each year after that. It is annual, and there is no fee. It asks for the names and ages of your students, your program address, your local school system, the twelve-month period that will be your school year, and your signature or confirmation code.

Filing online returns a digital confirmation code, and that code is more useful than it sounds. It is what gets used for driver’s permits, work permits and college admissions, so save it where you can find it rather than where you filed it. If your child is in high school, a declaration has to be filed for each year through to completion.

What you must teach, and for how long

The statute asks for a basic academic educational program which includes, but is not limited to, reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies and science. Those five words are a floor rather than a syllabus, and no curriculum is submitted or approved.

The time requirement is more specific than most states manage: the equivalent of 180 school days, each consisting of at least four and a half school hours. That works out to 810 hours a year. Georgia is one of the few states that puts an hours figure directly in the statute rather than leaving the school day undefined, which is worth knowing even though nothing reports those hours to anyone.

The test every three years, and why nobody sees it

You administer an appropriate nationally standardized test, in consultation with someone trained in administering and interpreting norm referenced tests, at least every three years beginning at the end of third grade. In practice that lands around grades 3, 6, 9 and 12.

Then comes the sentence that causes more confusion than anything else in Georgia homeschool law. Test records are retained and shall not be required to be submitted to public educational authorities. You give the test. Nobody receives the result.

There is no minimum score and no remediation process, so a low result carries no consequence in law. You cannot opt out of administering the test, but the outcome is genuinely your own information, which makes the exercise far less loaded than it sounds when you first read the requirement.

The records you keep, and the 2013 change

Two documents beyond the test. An annual progress assessment report, in which you write an individualized assessment of your child’s progress in each subject, kept for at least three years. And attendance records, kept but not sent.

The attendance point deserves emphasis because the internet has not caught up. Monthly attendance submission was a real requirement, and it was repealed effective 1 July 2013. The pre-2013 statute text still appears on plenty of pages that do not date their information, and families still dutifully mail in monthly reports that no longer have any basis.

Georgia rewards keeping records as you go more than most states, because you are writing a per-subject progress report every year and holding three years of them at a time. A digital homeschool planner records what you covered in each subject as the day happens, counts your instruction days toward the 180, and gives you the per-subject detail that the progress report is written from rather than remembered into. Free for 30 days, then $9 a month or $79 a year. Start free. Our guide to homeschool record keeping covers the paper version and the retention periods.

You need a diploma or GED yourself

The teaching parent or guardian must hold at least a high school diploma or a state approved high school equivalency diploma. If you employ a tutor, they need one too.

Like North Carolina, this is a genuine requirement rather than a recommendation. Unlike almost everything else in Georgia, nobody collects evidence of it, which does not make it optional.

HOPE and Zell Miller, and why homeschoolers need higher scores

This is where planning matters most, and where Georgia inverts the usual logic in a way that catches families late.

Most Georgia homeschools are unaccredited home study programs, and their graduates cannot qualify for HOPE on a grade point average, because there is no accredited GPA to use. They qualify on test scores instead, assessed manually by the state finance commission through its transcript evaluation process for unaccredited home study programs.

For HOPE that means an ACT composite of 24 or an SAT of 1160. For Zell Miller it means an ACT of 26 or an SAT of 1200. Both must be earned in a single national administration before graduation, so combining your best sections across separate sittings does not help you here.

Compare that with an accredited school graduate, who reaches HOPE on a 3.0 grade point average and Zell Miller on a 3.7 plus a test score. The homeschooled student needs the higher test score precisely because the GPA route is closed. Plan the testing calendar in tenth grade rather than twelfth. Retroactive awards are possible after 30 college hours at the relevant grade point average, which is a real safety net but a slower one.

You issue the diploma, and your declaration filings are the official registration record used for admissions, enlistment and work permits. A transcript still does the persuading, and it is much easier built from ninth grade.

The Promise Scholarship probably does not apply to you

Georgia’s first education savings account launched for the 2025 to 2026 school year, worth up to $6,500 per student per year in four quarterly installments, and home study is an allowed use of it. Read the eligibility before you plan around it.

A student must have been enrolled in a Georgia public school for two consecutive semesters, or be a rising kindergartner, and must live in the attendance zone of a public school in the lowest performing quarter of the state. Most families already homeschooling meet neither condition.

This is the mirror image of the trap in Florida. There the danger is taking money that quietly changes your legal status. Here the danger is building a budget around money you were never eligible for. The school performance rankings that decide the zone list are revised, so check whether your zoned school is currently on it rather than trusting last year’s answer or a guide.

If you do qualify, it covers tuition and fees, textbooks, tutoring, curriculum, therapy and transport, with approved expense documentation attached. Georgia offers no state income tax deduction or credit for homeschool expenses otherwise. Our guide to homeschool funding sets it against other states.

Sports, dual enrollment, and the report that does get seen

The Dexter Mosely Act opened public school activities to home study students in grades 6 through 12 at their resident school, and it is one of the more generous sports provisions in this series. It also has the longest list of conditions.

• Written notice. To the principal and the superintendent, at least 30 days before the semester.
• Your most recent progress report. With written verification of passing grades or satisfactory progress.
• One qualifying course. Enrolled in and attempted each semester you participate.
• The usual eligibility rules. Full compliance with the state high school association, attendance at your zoned school, and no tryouts before you are fully registered.

Notice the second item. The annual progress report is the one document you keep privately that somebody outside your family may actually read, which is a good reason to write it properly rather than in a hurry in August.

Dual enrollment is available tuition free to eligible home study students who can produce readiness documentation, and it is one of the better financial arguments for homeschooling high school in Georgia.

Special education, where Georgia is unusually protective

The individual entitlement to a free appropriate public education lapses when you withdraw, as everywhere. But Georgia law then deems home study students to be private school students who are to be provided the same special education and related services as students enrolled in private schools.

That gives you proportionate share access and retained evaluation eligibility, which is a stronger position than Texas, Florida or Alabama offer, and it is written into statute rather than left to district discretion.

One thing it does not give you is the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship. That program funds private school enrollment and requires a prior public school individualized education program, and it excludes home study students.

The mistake that causes almost all the trouble

Sending things nobody asked for, and missing the one date that matters.

Mailing attendance or test scores to your district does not make you more compliant. It creates a file, an expectation and a correspondence, all in a system built on you keeping your own records. Meanwhile the 1 September declaration, the only filing Georgia actually wants, is the one families let slide.

Put that date in a calendar, keep everything else at home, and Georgia is a comfortable state to homeschool in despite reading like a strict one. New to all of this? Our guide to how to start homeschooling takes over from here.

Statutes, scholarship eligibility, school performance rankings and athletic rules all change, and the Promise Scholarship in particular is new and moving. Confirm the current detail with the Georgia Department of Education, the state student finance commission, or a homeschool legal organization before you act on it. This guide describes the shape of Georgia law as of July 2026, not the paperwork of any particular year.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to register to homeschool in Georgia? Yes. A Declaration of Intent, filed online with the state within 30 days of starting and then by 1 September each year. It is the only thing you submit, and it returns a confirmation code worth keeping.

Do I have to send attendance records in Georgia? No. Monthly attendance submission was repealed in 2013. You keep attendance records, and the old requirement still circulates on pages that do not date their information.

Does Georgia require testing for homeschoolers? A nationally standardized test at least every three years, beginning at the end of third grade. There is no minimum score, no remediation process, and the statute says the records are retained rather than submitted.

Do I need a diploma to homeschool in Georgia? Yes, at least a high school diploma or a state approved equivalency diploma for the teaching parent or guardian, and for any tutor you employ.

Can homeschoolers get the HOPE scholarship in Georgia? Yes, but on test scores rather than a grade point average. An unaccredited home study graduate needs an ACT composite of 24 or an SAT of 1160 for HOPE, and 26 or 1200 for Zell Miller, each earned in a single national administration.