NH Homeschool Portfolio Review: How to Prepare and What Evaluators Look For

The annual portfolio review with a certified teacher is the most common way NH homeschool families satisfy the evaluation requirement under RSA 193-A:6. It's also the one that generates the most pre-June anxiety, mostly because parents picture it as something closer to a formal inspection than what it actually is.

In practice, a New Hampshire portfolio review is a brief, collegial conversation. A teacher reviews your portfolio, talks with you (and often with your child) for 30 to 45 minutes, and writes a letter confirming that your child showed reasonable academic progress during the year. That's it. Understanding what the evaluator is actually looking for — and what they are not looking for — will take most of the stress out of this process.

Who Can Conduct the Review

Under RSA 193-A:6, the certified teacher conducting a portfolio review must meet one of three criteria:

• Currently hold a New Hampshire teaching credential
• Hold a teaching certificate in another state that has reciprocity with New Hampshire
• Currently teach in a New Hampshire nonpublic school

The evaluator cannot be a family member. Beyond that, you have wide latitude — you can choose any teacher who meets these qualifications and is willing to conduct portfolio reviews for homeschoolers.

The best places to find NH homeschool evaluators:

Granite State Home Educators (GSHE): GSHE maintains the most comprehensive evaluator referral list in the state, updated annually. This is where most NH families start.

Local homeschool co-ops and Facebook groups: NH has active regional homeschool communities (particularly in the southern tier around Manchester and Nashua, and in the Seacoast area). Evaluator recommendations circulate frequently in these groups in April and May.

Your participating agency: Some school districts maintain their own lists of evaluators. If you filed with a nonpublic school as your participating agency, the school's staff may conduct reviews or refer you to teachers they know.

Directly approaching public school teachers: Retired teachers, substitute teachers, and active public school teachers who do portfolio reviews in their personal capacity are common throughout NH. Many charge $30 to $60 for the review.

Book your evaluator early. May and June appointments fill up fast — some evaluators see 20 or more families per season. Contacting evaluators in March or early April is not too soon.

What the Evaluator Is Looking For

The legal standard is clear: the evaluator is confirming that your child demonstrated "reasonable academic progress commensurate with the child's age, ability, and/or disability." They are not:

• Checking whether your curriculum matches public school standards
• Assessing whether your child is at grade level
• Looking for a specific number of worksheets or hours of instruction
• Evaluating your teaching style or methodology

NH evaluators understand the state's educational framework. Most are experienced with a wide range of homeschooling approaches — traditional curricula, unit studies, Charlotte Mason, classical education, unschooling, and project-based learning. They are reviewing for the presence of learning across the required subjects and evidence that it moved forward during the year.

The three things evaluators consistently look for:

1. Coverage of the eleven required subjects. Not perfection in each area — coverage. The evaluator wants to see that all eleven subject areas (science, math, language, government, history, health, reading, writing, spelling, NH/US constitutions, art and music) were addressed in some form during the year.

2. Evidence of progression over time. This is why work samples from the beginning, middle, and end of the year are more valuable than a large stack of recent work. A September math worksheet next to a May math worksheet shows growth. A pile of identical worksheets from June doesn't.

3. A coherent reading log. The reading log is the one element explicitly named in RSA 193-A as required. An evaluator will look at this to understand the scope of the child's reading and to verify that it's been maintained throughout the year.

How to Prepare Your Portfolio for the Review

Most evaluators suggest limiting the portfolio to what can be reviewed in 30 to 45 minutes. A well-organized portfolio of 40 to 60 pages is far more effective than three binders of daily paperwork. The goal is curation, not volume.

Two to four weeks before the review:

• Confirm your appointment and ask the evaluator if they have any specific preferences for how portfolios are organized or presented. Most don't, but some do.
• Assemble your portfolio by pulling three to five work samples per required subject, spanning the beginning, middle, and end of the year.
• Complete your reading log if you haven't updated it recently. Include books from every quarter.
• Write or finalize your parent narrative summary — one to two pages describing your year, curriculum used, any challenges, and your child's progress. This dramatically speeds up the conversation with the evaluator.

One week before the review:

• Organize everything with labeled dividers or clear section tabs. The evaluator should be able to flip to any subject without hunting through loose papers.
• If you have a child with neurodivergent learning needs, prepare a brief note explaining the child's profile and learning approach. This helps the evaluator interpret the portfolio correctly against the "commensurate with ability and disability" standard.
• Ensure your original participating agency acknowledgment letter is included in the portfolio (or that you have it available).

Day of the review:

• Bring the portfolio in a format you can hand to the evaluator — either a physical binder or a device with your digital portfolio open and navigable.
• Let the evaluator lead the conversation. They will typically review the portfolio quietly for the first portion of the meeting, then ask questions of you or the child.
• If the evaluator asks a question that seems to imply your child is behind or your portfolio is insufficient, stay calm and provide context. Evaluators are required to assess against an individualized standard, not a public school benchmark.

The Evaluation Letter

After the review, the evaluator writes a letter affirming that your child demonstrated reasonable academic progress. This letter typically:

• Is one to two pages long
• References the child by name and the academic year covered
• Notes that the required subjects were covered
• States that reasonable academic progress was observed
• Is signed by the evaluator

Critically, under RSA 193-A:6, the evaluation letter is not complete until you, the parent, also sign it. Your signature is legally required. If for any reason you disagree with the evaluator's assessment, you have the right to withhold your signature and seek a different evaluator. The state has no mechanism to enforce an unsatisfactory evaluation — poor results cannot be used as grounds to terminate a home education program.

Once signed by both parties, the letter stays in your files. It is not submitted to your participating agency, the NH Department of Education, or any other government entity. It is private family property.

The one exception: if your family participates in the Education Freedom Account (EFA) program, you must submit the signed evaluation letter (or a standardized test score) to the Children's Scholarship Fund by July 15th to maintain your funding eligibility for the following year.

If the Review Doesn't Go Perfectly

Many parents dread the review because they're imagining a scenario where the evaluator finds the portfolio inadequate and triggers some kind of state intervention. This is not how it works in New Hampshire.

If an evaluator expresses concern about a child's progress, there are no mandatory consequences. The law explicitly states that evaluation results "shall not be used as a basis for termination of a home education program." There is no follow-up requirement, no remediation plan, and no state oversight triggered by a difficult review. The evaluator writes the letter, you decide whether to sign it, and the matter stays between you, your child, and the teacher.

In practice, evaluators who work regularly with the NH homeschool community understand the wide range of learning approaches and timelines they're likely to see. Evaluations are rarely adversarial, and most families come away from the experience feeling validated rather than scrutinized.

If you're preparing for an upcoming review and want a portfolio that's already structured the way evaluators expect to see it, the New Hampshire Portfolio & Assessment Templates includes fillable reading log, subject summary, and parent narrative templates built specifically for RSA 193-A reviews — so you're walking in organized and confident.

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