North Dakota Homeschool Curriculum Requirements: Required Subjects by Grade

North Dakota law does not tell you which textbooks to buy, which publisher to use, or how to structure a lesson. What it does specify — clearly and in statute — is the list of subjects your program must cover. Skip one and you are technically out of compliance, even if your child is learning well by every other measure.

This covers the full required subject list under NDCC §15.1-23, the grade-specific additions at grades 4 and 8, and the credit-hour requirements for high school students. If you are planning your year or setting up a subject tracker, this is the legal foundation you are working from.

The Core Required Subjects

Under North Dakota's home education law, every homeschool program — K through 12 — must cover the same subjects required in public schools. The statute lists these categories:

• Reading — foundational literacy, phonics in early grades, comprehension and fluency through middle school
• Language arts and composition — grammar, writing mechanics, written expression
• Mathematics — no grade-specific breakdowns in statute; families choose the scope and sequence
• Science — including agriculture (addressed separately below)
• Social studies — including North Dakota history and the history and cultures of Native American tribes within the state
• Health — covers wellness, nutrition, personal safety, and age-appropriate health education
• Physical education — regular physical activity as part of the instructional program
• Computer science and cybersecurity — added via recent legislative updates; age-appropriate digital literacy and online safety concepts count at the elementary level

The list surprises some families with the agriculture component inside science. North Dakota's agricultural heritage is baked into state standards, and the law reflects that. You do not need a farm — lessons on food systems, plant biology, crop science, or soil health satisfy the requirement at every grade level.

Social Studies: The North Dakota Studies Requirement

Social studies carries an extra layer at specific grades. Senate Bill 2304 (2021) codified the requirement that homeschooled students at grade 4 and grade 8 must cover North Dakota Studies as a distinct unit within social studies. The content scope includes:

• North Dakota geography, physical features, and regions
• State history from territorial days through statehood and into the modern era
• Agriculture and the role of farming and ranching in the state's economy
• The history and contemporary cultures of the Native American tribes within North Dakota (particularly the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara Nation and the Standing Rock and Turtle Mountain tribes)

This is not optional, and it is not satisfied by a general U.S. history curriculum. Your grade 4 and grade 8 documentation should reflect that ND Studies was covered as a specific unit. Many families use NDHSA-recommended resources or the state's own K-12 content standards documents as a framework.

For high school, the social studies requirement expands in the credit structure — see the high school section below.

Reading and Language Arts: What "Required" Means in Practice

North Dakota does not mandate a specific reading or writing curriculum. The state has adopted North Dakota K-12 English Language Arts Content Standards, which define expectations by grade band — but those are benchmarks for what students should know, not a required scope-and-sequence you must follow.

What this means practically: you choose the materials. Phonics programs, literature-based reading, structured literacy approaches, unit studies that integrate writing — all of these satisfy the reading and language arts requirement as long as you can show that reading and composition are part of your program. Your subject tracker or course descriptions on the Statement of Intent are where this gets documented.

Science and Mathematics: Freedom on Method, Not on Subject

North Dakota does not specify which science topics must be taught at which grade levels. You are not required to follow a biology-chemistry-physics sequence in high school, though many families do. Earth science, physical science, life science, and integrated science approaches all satisfy the science requirement.

Same for mathematics. The law requires math — the scope, pace, and curriculum are yours to decide. Saxon, Singapore Math, Teaching Textbooks, Khan Academy, or a parent-created program all comply. What matters is that math is being taught and that your records reflect it.

The one caveat: if your child is approaching a standardized testing year (grades 4, 6, 8, and 10 for non-certified parents), your math and reading choices will determine how prepared they are for the assessment. North Dakota's testing requirement benchmarks against the 50th national percentile composite — curriculum quality affects outcomes.

Health and Physical Education

Health and PE are listed together in the subject requirement but cover distinct areas. Health typically includes:

• Nutrition and physical wellness
• Personal hygiene and body systems
• Mental health and emotional regulation basics (increasingly emphasized in updated state standards)
• Personal safety, including internet safety (which overlaps with the computer science/cybersecurity requirement)

Physical education means regular physical activity with an instructional component. Structured sports participation, PE co-op classes, swim lessons with skill instruction, and organized home-based activity programs all qualify. The requirement is that PE is present in the program — North Dakota does not specify a minimum number of minutes per week for homeschoolers at the elementary or middle school level.

High School Credit Requirements

High school is where the subject requirements become specific in terms of hours. North Dakota homeschool law requires the following minimum credits for graduation:

The distinction between 120 and 150 hours matters: science credits and CTE (Career and Technical Education) courses require 150 instructional hours per credit rather than the standard 120. If you are awarding lab science credits — biology, chemistry, physics — plan for the higher hour threshold.

Social studies' four-credit requirement is substantive. A typical sequence might cover world history, U.S. history, North Dakota Studies/civics, and government or economics. The North Dakota Studies component required at grade 8 can naturally feed into the high school social studies sequence.

These credit definitions directly affect how you build a transcript. Parents issue their own diplomas in North Dakota, which means your transcript needs to reflect a course structure that matches these hour requirements. College admissions offices — especially in-state at NDSU, UND, and the state colleges — review homeschool transcripts closely.

What North Dakota Does Not Require

A few things families assume are mandated that are not:

Specific curriculum products. There is no approved curriculum list. Any materials — secular or faith-based, online or print, structured or unschooling-adjacent — satisfy the requirement as long as the required subjects are covered.

Lesson plan submissions. You do not submit lesson plans, attendance records, or portfolios to the district. The Statement of Intent lists your subjects; the district does not receive further documentation unless a testing year triggers monitoring.

Detailed course descriptions on the SOI. The Statement of Intent form asks for the subjects you will teach and any curriculum you intend to use. Brief descriptions are acceptable — you are not filing a full curriculum guide.

Prior approval. North Dakota is a notice state, not an approval state. Filing the Statement of Intent notifies the district; it does not require their sign-off before you begin instruction.

Tracking What You Teach

The practical challenge is not understanding the requirements — it is proving you met them if a testing year comes back below threshold or a question arises. NDCC §15.1-23-05 requires you to maintain an annual record of courses taken and academic progress assessments. That record is yours to keep; it is not submitted to the district unless you are under monitoring.

A subject coverage tracker that maps each required area to what you actually taught — resources used, approximate hours, and any assessments — gives you that documentation without excessive overhead. It is also useful when filling out the next year's Statement of Intent, since you are repeating the process annually.

If you want a ready-made system for North Dakota specifically — subject trackers, attendance logs, portfolio frameworks, and testing-year checklists all built around the state's actual requirements — the North Dakota Portfolio & Assessment Templates cover the full compliance documentation side of your program.

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