PG County Homeschool Portfolio Review: What to Prepare and What Reviewers Look For

The portfolio review is the moment Maryland families under Option 1 supervision have been preparing for all semester. In Prince George's County — one of Maryland's largest districts with a substantial and growing homeschool population — that review follows the statewide COMAR framework, but there are county-specific procedures worth knowing before you show up to meet the reviewer.

This post covers what the PG County review actually involves, how much instruction you are expected to document, what reviewers look for across the eight required subjects, and how to prepare a portfolio that satisfies the legal standard without drowning in paperwork.

How Option 1 Works in Prince George's County

Under COMAR 13A.10.01, Maryland families who choose Option 1 supervision agree to have their home instruction program reviewed by a representative of the local school superintendent. In Prince George's County, that means the county's Home Instruction Office coordinates and schedules these reviews.

COMAR restricts portfolio reviews to a maximum of three times per year, but the standard practice in PG County — as in most Maryland counties — is twice a year, roughly aligned with semester breaks. The review is not a test of your child's abilities; it is an administrative check to verify that regular, thorough instruction in the eight state-mandated subjects is occurring. The reviewer does not grade your child's work. They assess whether the portfolio demonstrates consistent instruction over the review period.

Reviews are typically conducted at a mutually agreeable time and location. This may be at a county office, at your home, or at a neutral location. You are not required to have the review at a public school building, and you are not required to bring your child.

What the Eight Required Subjects Mean in Practice

Maryland mandates instruction in English, mathematics, science, social studies, art, music, health, and physical education. The law does not define how many hours must be devoted to each subject, and it does not specify a particular curriculum. What it requires is that instruction be regular — meaning it happens consistently throughout the school year — and thorough, meaning it covers the substantive content of each subject area.

For portfolio purposes, this translates into documentation across all eight areas. Here is what typically satisfies each category:

English: Writing samples, reading comprehension exercises, grammar worksheets, book reports, dictation pages, or online program skill reports. Chronologically dated across the semester demonstrates consistency.

Mathematics: Completed math pages, a sequence of daily practice worksheets, or online program completion logs. Include examples from early in the semester and late in the semester to show continuous instruction.

Science: Unit study outlines, nature journal entries, lab worksheets, or curriculum chapter tests. For elementary ages, nature study logs and annotated observations are widely accepted.

Social studies: Map worksheets, timeline projects, history reading logs, or unit summaries covering geography, civics, or history topics appropriate to the child's grade level.

Art: This is one of the categories where parents most often come underprepared. Photographs of completed artwork, a log of art projects with dates, or printouts from an online art curriculum work well. If your child takes lessons externally, include the attendance record.

Music: Lesson attendance logs, instrument practice logs, or notes from a music co-op. Descriptions of exposure to music through concert attendance or structured listening sessions are also acceptable.

Health: Completed health curriculum pages, a log of health-related topics covered, or records from a structured health unit. Basic topics like personal hygiene, nutrition, and first aid are appropriate for younger students; reproductive health and mental wellness for older ones.

Physical education: An activity log is the most common documentation format. Record dates, duration, and the activity (swimming lessons, martial arts class, nature hikes, organized sports). Attendance records from an outside program strengthen this section considerably.

How Many Hours Per Day Is Enough

This is the question Maryland families ask most often, and it is the question COMAR deliberately leaves unanswered. The regulations do not specify a minimum number of hours per day or per week. They require only that instruction be "of sufficient duration to implement the program effectively."

In practice, reviewers assess the portfolio, not a time log. A portfolio that shows substantive, chronologically consistent progress across all eight subjects demonstrates effective instruction regardless of whether you spent two hours a day or six. A time-heavy approach that produces thin, repetitive work samples across only a few subjects will not satisfy the reviewer better than a shorter, well-documented program.

That said, most Maryland homeschool families shoot for somewhere between 4 and 6 instructional hours per day for middle and high school students, and 2 to 4 hours for elementary ages. These ranges reflect what the portfolios of compliant families tend to look like when you work backward from the documentation they produce.

What does matter in terms of duration is that instruction happens throughout the school year — not in bursts followed by extended gaps. A portfolio where all the math samples are from October and the science samples are all from November, with nothing in December, raises questions about regularity. Distributing dated samples across the full semester is more important than the number of hours logged in a single day.

What Reviewers Are Looking For — And What They Are Not Allowed to Demand

The reviewer's job is to determine whether "regular, thorough instruction" is occurring across the eight subjects. That is the only legal standard they can apply.

Under COMAR 13A.10.01.01.F, local school systems cannot impose requirements beyond the regulations. This means a reviewer cannot:

• Require daily lesson plans formatted in a specific way
• Demand that subjects be separated into sub-categories more granular than the eight areas (for example, requiring separate documentation for spelling versus composition versus literature within English)
• Require standardized test results
• Challenge your choice of curriculum on ideological or methodological grounds
• Demand to see evidence that you have a teaching degree or formal educational background

If a reviewer requests something that goes beyond what the regulations require, politely reference COMAR 13A.10.01.01.F. If the reviewer insists, document the request in writing and request that any formal feedback be provided in writing as well.

If a reviewer determines that the instruction is deficient, you receive a written notice of noncompliance and 30 days to provide evidence that the deficiency is being corrected. This is not a termination of your program; it is a remediation process. An adverse final decision — which is rare for families who understand the standard — can be appealed to the county school board and then to the State Board of Education.

Building a Portfolio That Works for PG County

The most common portfolio mistake is bringing too much disorganized material. A reviewer looking through three binders of loose worksheets is more likely to miss evidence of thorough coverage than one looking through a single organized folder with clear subject dividers and a brief contents page.

An effective PG County portfolio for one semester includes:

• A one-page table of contents or summary listing the curriculum or resources used for each subject
• Three to five dated work samples per subject, distributed across the semester
• For activity-based subjects like PE, art, and music: a brief dated log or photos of projects

If you are using an online curriculum like Time4Learning, Khan Academy, or IXL, generate a progress report from the platform before the review. These auto-generated reports include subject names, skills completed, dates, and time spent — exactly the documentation format reviewers find credible and easy to process.

Keep the original portfolio organized throughout the year rather than assembling it the week before the review. A family that maintains a well-organized folder of monthly samples per subject will spend about an hour before the review instead of a panicked weekend.

When Switching to Option 2 Makes More Sense

For some PG County families, the semi-annual portfolio review creates disproportionate stress relative to the child's actual instructional progress. Families with neurodivergent children, unschooling families, or families using project-based learning approaches sometimes find that their documentation does not easily translate into the subject-separated, work-sample format the county review expects — even though substantive learning is clearly occurring.

In those cases, switching to Option 2 umbrella supervision removes the county reviewer entirely. The umbrella organization, not the county, oversees compliance. This is a legal, routine choice and Maryland allows families to switch between Option 1 and Option 2 at any time by notifying the superintendent of the change.

The Maryland Legal Withdrawal Blueprint includes a clear breakdown of how Option 1 and Option 2 differ in practice, what a compliant Option 1 portfolio looks like at the county level, and a curated list of Maryland umbrella organizations categorized by orientation and cost. If you are in PG County and considering which supervision pathway makes more sense for your family, the Blueprint walks through both options from the parent's perspective rather than the district's.

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