Vermont Homeschool Curriculum Requirements: What the Law Actually Mandates

Vermont does not tell you what curriculum to use. It does not maintain an approved textbook list. It does not require you to follow a specific instructional method. What Vermont requires is that your child receives instruction in a defined set of subjects over at least 175 days — and that you can document it. That's a narrower mandate than most new families expect, and it gives you substantially more curricular freedom than most states.

Here is what the law actually requires and what that means in practice.

The Legal Framework: MCOS Under 16 V.S.A. § 166b

Vermont's home study curriculum requirements flow from two statutes working together. The required subjects come from 16 V.S.A. § 906 — the general public school curriculum law — and are applied to home study through 16 V.S.A. § 166b, the home study statute.

Under the 2023 Act 66 update to § 166b, you are required to develop a Minimum Course of Study (MCOS) for your child and attest on your annual Notice of Enrollment that you have done so. You do not submit the MCOS to the Vermont Agency of Education. You keep it privately. The AOE does not review, approve, or evaluate your curriculum. They only confirm that you checked the attestation box on the enrollment form.

This distinction matters: Vermont is an attestation state, not an approval state. You are legally responsible for covering the required subjects, but no state employee is evaluating whether your curriculum meets that standard. Your accountability comes through your year-end assessment and, if necessary, any private records that might be examined in a dispute.

Required Subjects by Age

Vermont's subject requirements have an age split at 13 that many families miss.

Students under age 13 must receive instruction in all of the following:

• Reading, writing, and mathematics
• Vermont and United States history, citizenship, and government
• Natural sciences
• English, American, and other literature
• Fine arts
• Physical education
• Health education (including effects of tobacco, alcohol, and drugs)

Students age 13 and older must receive instruction in:

• Reading, writing, and mathematics
• Vermont and United States history, citizenship, and government
• Natural sciences
• English, American, and other literature

Fine arts, physical education, and health education are no longer required at age 13. The split is based on the student's age, not grade level. A 12-year-old in what most families would call "seventh grade" is still subject to the under-13 list.

What "Instruction" Means — and What It Doesn't

Vermont law requires that instruction occur. It does not require:

• A specific number of hours per day
• Use of accredited curriculum programs
• Formal lessons, tests, or grades
• A credentialed teacher (no certification requirement for parents)
• Any particular instructional method

Instruction in Natural Sciences can mean a boxed curriculum with lab workbooks, or it can mean a family garden, a nature journal, and participation in Vermont's forest ecology programs. Instruction in Fine Arts can mean private music lessons, community theater, or a portfolio of drawings. Physical education can mean varsity-level competitive skiing, three-season outdoor sports, or a structured fitness program.

What matters is that you can connect the activity to the subject requirement. "Maple sugaring" isn't a subject on the MCOS, but "Natural Sciences: sap chemistry, plant biology, evaporation rates" is. You are the one making that translation — in your MCOS, in your attendance log, and ultimately in your year-end assessment.

How Your Curriculum Choice Affects Assessment

Vermont's five approved assessment options interact with curriculum choice in ways that matter for planning.

Parent Report with Portfolio: If you're using an eclectic or unschooling approach, this option works best. You write a narrative of what was covered in each subject and support it with at least four work samples per required subject. The work samples are the proof — they need to be tangible (written work, photos of projects, audio/video recordings, dated observation notes).

Vermont-Certified Teacher Assessment: A licensed Vermont educator reviews your child's work and writes a formal report. This option works with any curriculum approach but requires hiring an evaluator. Evaluators are generally more comfortable reviewing traditional curricula — if you're doing heavily experiential or project-based learning, finding an evaluator who understands that approach matters.

Standardized Testing: Tests like the CAT-4, Iowa Assessments, or NWEA MAP cover core academic skills but do not assess fine arts, physical education, or health. If you use standardized testing as your primary assessment, you need supplementary documentation for the subjects the test doesn't cover. This is a common gap for families who assume a test score satisfies all MCOS requirements.

Online Academy Grades: If you're enrolled in an accredited online program, official grades or transcripts from that program serve as your assessment. This is effectively the program managing your curriculum and assessment simultaneously.

GED/HiSET: Applies primarily to older students (typically 16+) who want a formal high school equivalency credential.

Choosing a Curriculum Approach

Because Vermont imposes no curriculum mandates beyond subject coverage, families in Vermont use the full range of approaches:

Structured curricula (Abeka, Sonlight, Time4Learning, Khan Academy) map straightforwardly to the MCOS subject list and make documentation easy. If the curriculum has a scope and sequence, your planning work is mostly done.

Charlotte Mason approaches involve living books, nature journals, narration, and handicrafts. Under-13 fine arts and PE requirements fit naturally into this method. Documentation requires some intentional translation: noting which books cover literature, which nature study sessions satisfy science, which handicraft work satisfies fine arts.

Classical approaches (The Well-Trained Mind, Classical Conversations) tend to be rigorous in the core subjects but may need supplementation for PE and health for younger students.

Unschooling and interest-led learning require the most deliberate documentation work. You're doing the backward mapping described above — identifying which statutory subject each activity satisfies — and recording it. Vermont's portfolio assessment option accommodates unschooling well, but only if the documentation is there.

Vermont-specific and outdoor programs are genuinely common here. Farm-based learning, forest school programs, and participation in Vermont's extensive conservation and agriculture programs all satisfy MCOS requirements with the right documentation.

What Happens If Your Subject Coverage Has Gaps

Because the AOE doesn't review your curriculum or MCOS, gaps aren't discovered through a state audit. They surface in your year-end assessment. A parent portfolio that's missing four work samples in Fine Arts, or a teacher assessment where the evaluator notes no evidence of health instruction, is a documentation problem at assessment time.

The practical solution is to plan your MCOS at the beginning of the year and check off subjects as you go. A simple subject tracker — one row per required subject, one column per month — takes five minutes to update weekly and eliminates the scramble at assessment time.

Building the MCOS, tracking subject coverage, and collecting assessment documentation in a way that's organized from the start is significantly easier with the right tools. The Vermont Legal Withdrawal Blueprint includes documentation support for families navigating the start of a Vermont home study program, with templates built around the current Act 66 requirements and Vermont's specific subject list.

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