How to Homeschool in Georgia: A Step-by-Step Guide

Most parents who want to start homeschooling in Georgia hit the same wall: they know they want out, but they're not sure what order to do things in — and they're worried about getting it wrong. Missing a step can mean a truancy flag, a DFCS inquiry, or a compliance gap that costs your child a state scholarship years down the road.

Here is the full sequence, in order, with the legal citations that matter.

Step 1: Understand What Georgia Actually Requires

Georgia operates under O.C.G.A. § 20-2-690(c), which defines the Home Study Program. You are not registering with the state so they can oversee you — you are filing a Declaration of Intent so the system knows your child is enrolled somewhere. The distinction matters.

Georgia's core requirements for every home study program:

• 180 days of instruction per 12-month period
• 4.5 hours per day of instruction
• Five mandatory subjects: Reading, Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies, and Science
• Teaching parent qualifications: The parent (or legal guardian) must hold at minimum a high school diploma or GED. No teaching license is required.
• Annual Progress Report: Written every year, kept on file for three years. Never submitted to the state.
• Standardized testing: Required every three years starting in third grade (grades 3, 6, 9, 12). Scores are not submitted anywhere — just retained in your records.

Georgia gives you essentially total freedom over curriculum, schedule, and teaching methods, as long as those five boxes are checked.

Step 2: Formally Withdraw from the Current School

If your child is enrolled in a public school, do not simply stop sending them. Disappearing without a formal withdrawal will trigger an unexcused absence flag within days.

The correct withdrawal process:

1. Go to the school in person. Do not rely on a phone call or an email.
2. Sign the district's official withdrawal form.
3. Return all district property — Chromebooks, textbooks, library books.
4. Clear any outstanding balances (lunch accounts, library fines).
5. Request your child's records on the spot: cumulative file, health records, attendance history, and current transcripts. You have the right to these.

While you are there, you may encounter pushback. Staff in large districts like Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, and DeKalb sometimes incorrectly tell parents they need district approval to homeschool, or that the principal must review and sign off on the withdrawal. This is not true. Georgia law gives local schools zero authority to approve or deny a home study program. Be polite, complete the withdrawal form, and move on to Step 3.

If the school refuses to process the withdrawal cleanly or demands you attend conferences or submit curriculum plans, send a formal Letter of Withdrawal via certified mail citing O.C.G.A. § 20-2-690(c). That letter creates a paper trail and signals that you know the law.

Step 3: File the Declaration of Intent (DOI) Immediately

The Declaration of Intent is the legal document that activates your home study program in the eyes of Georgia. It is filed with the Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE) — not your local school district.

File the same day you withdraw your child from school. Do not wait.

Go to the GaDOE portal at apps.gadoe.org and complete the online form. You will need:

• Each enrolled student's name and age
• Your home address (where the program will operate)
• Your local school system (county)
• The 12-month window you are declaring as your school year (e.g., August 1, 2025 to July 31, 2026)

When the form is submitted successfully, the portal generates a document containing a 36-character digital signature code. Save a PDF of this document immediately. This code is your legal proof of enrollment — it is what you present to the DMV for a learner's permit, to an employer for a work permit, and to the military for enlistment verification. Without it, proving your child is legally enrolled anywhere becomes difficult.

Annual renewal: You must re-file the DOI every year by September 1st. Missing this deadline means your child is technically truant under Georgia law.

Step 4: Notify the Local School Directly

Here is the step most parents skip — and it is the one that triggers DFCS calls.

The GaDOE is legally required to share DOI data with local school districts, but there is often an administrative lag of days or weeks. During that window, your child's attendance record shows an unexcused absence. If the district does not receive proof of enrollment within 45 days, DHS Policy 20.01 requires them to report the family to the Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) for an educational neglect assessment.

The fix is simple: hand-deliver, fax, or email a copy of your filed DOI (including the 36-character code) directly to the school's attendance clerk or principal the same day you file it. Ask for written confirmation that they received it.

This step closes the communication loop between the state level and the county level, and it eliminates the truancy risk entirely.

Step 5: Set Up Your Record-Keeping System

Georgia does not collect your records, but you are required to maintain them. Three categories:

Attendance log: Track each school day. There is no mandated format — a wall calendar with X marks, a spreadsheet, or a teacher's planner all work. You need to show 180 days at 4.5 hours per day for your declared school year.

Annual Progress Report: Every year, you write a narrative (or checklist-style) summary of each student's progress in the five core subjects. Keep it for at least three years. This document never goes anywhere — you just have it on file in case it is ever needed for a school re-enrollment, college process, or legal question.

Standardized test scores: Starting at the end of third grade and every three years after that (grades 3, 6, 9, 12), you must administer a nationally norm-referenced test. Acceptable options include the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS), the Stanford Achievement Test, the California Achievement Test (CAT), and MAP Growth. The Georgia Milestones assessment used by public schools does not satisfy this requirement. Scores are kept in your files and never submitted to any agency.

Step 6: Plan Ahead for High School and Beyond

Georgia is easy to start. The mistakes happen years later when parents discover things they did not know about at the beginning.

The most important thing to understand early: graduates of unaccredited home study programs face a 1340 SAT or 29 ACT threshold to qualify for the Zell Miller Scholarship — compared to a 1200 SAT (or 25 ACT) for students from accredited programs. If your child is in middle school right now, the curricular and test-prep decisions you make today have a direct financial impact on their access to Georgia's state scholarship.

Georgia's Dual Enrollment program (Move On When Ready) allows 10th, 11th, and 12th grade homeschooled students to take college courses with state funding. To participate, students need to meet minimum test score thresholds and have their home study program registered through GAfutures.org. Setting this up correctly requires navigating a few specific administrative steps well before junior year.

The Georgia Legal Withdrawal Blueprint covers the full withdrawal process in one place — including the withdrawal letter template, progress report format, and the scholarship eligibility timeline — so you don't have to piece it together from scattered sources.

A Note on Mid-Year Withdrawals

If your child started the school year in public school before you withdraw, Georgia allows you to count those public school attendance days toward your 180-day home study requirement. A child who attended 20 days of public school only needs 160 more days of home instruction to meet the annual requirement. When filing your DOI mid-year, set the "start date" of your declared school year to the date the child began public school — not the date you started homeschooling.

What Comes Next

Once the DOI is filed and your school has been formally notified, you are legally operating a home study program in Georgia. From that point, homeschooling in Georgia is largely self-directed. The state will not inspect your curriculum, contact you about lesson plans, or send anyone to your home. Your job is to maintain attendance records, write the annual progress report, and stay current on the September 1st renewal deadline each year.

See more United States homeschool guides →