Vermont Homeschool Evaluator: How Teacher Assessment Works

One of Vermont's five legal end-of-year assessment options is the teacher assessment: a review of your student's work by someone who holds a current, valid Vermont teaching certificate. For families who want independent validation without the pressure of a standardized test, this option hits a useful middle ground. But it requires some planning — the right evaluator needs to be found, contacted, and scheduled well before your 175-day instructional year wraps up.

Here is what you need to know about how Vermont homeschool teacher assessments work, where to find evaluators, what to expect during the review, and how to prepare your documentation.

What Vermont Law Requires

Under 16 V.S.A. §166b, the teacher assessment option requires that a person holding a current, valid Vermont teacher's certificate reviews the student's progress. The evaluator must formally attest, in writing, that the student has made educational progress during the year across the subjects covered by your Minimum Course of Study (MCOS).

That written report becomes part of your EOYA record. Under Act 66, effective July 1, 2023, you no longer submit this report to the Vermont Agency of Education — you retain it in your own files for a minimum of two years. If your student ever re-enters public school, applies to a Vermont Dual Enrollment program, or if your documentation is ever questioned in a legal proceeding, that teacher assessment report is your evidence.

The evaluator does not need to be a current classroom teacher. Retired Vermont educators with active certificates, private tutors with Vermont licensure, and even community college instructors with Vermont certification can all serve as your evaluator. What matters is that the certificate is current and valid.

Where to Find a Vermont Homeschool Evaluator

Vermont Home Education Network (VHEN) maintains a list of evaluators who work with homeschool families. VHEN is the primary advocacy organization for Vermont homeschoolers and has cultivated relationships with certified teachers who are familiar with the home study framework. Their website and Facebook group are a good first stop.

Local homeschool co-ops in Burlington, Rutland, Montpelier, and Brattleboro often have informal referral lists circulating within the group. Parents who have used specific evaluators will share names and contact information.

Tutoring platforms like Wyzant and Care.com allow you to search for Vermont-certified educators. Filtering by Vermont state licensure and education level will surface candidates, though you will need to confirm their certificate status directly.

Local school districts are another option. Some district teachers are willing to conduct homeschool evaluations privately outside school hours. This is not formally organized — it typically happens through personal connections — but it is a legitimate path.

When reaching out to potential evaluators, ask directly: Is your Vermont teaching certificate current? What subjects do you evaluate? Do you review portfolios in advance or do you conduct an interview? What is your fee?

What the Evaluation Typically Costs

Vermont homeschool evaluations generally run between $50 and $150, depending on the evaluator's experience, the depth of the review, and whether it includes a portfolio pre-review plus an in-person or video interview, or just one component.

Some evaluators charge a flat rate for a standard review. Others charge by the hour for longer evaluations or families with multiple children. There is no state-set fee schedule — it is negotiated individually.

For comparison: a parent report and portfolio EOYA can be completed with zero external cost. The teacher assessment adds expense, but it also adds a layer of third-party documentation that carries independent credibility.

What Evaluators Actually Review

A Vermont homeschool evaluator is not testing your child for specific content knowledge. They are assessing whether your student has demonstrated educational progress across your MCOS subjects during the year. That is a meaningfully different question.

Most evaluators work through a combination of two approaches:

Portfolio review: You provide a binder or digital folder organized by MCOS subject, containing dated work samples from across the year. The evaluator reads through the work, looking for evidence of progression — early-year samples compared to late-year samples — and coverage of the required subjects.

Student interview: The evaluator has a conversation with the student. This is usually informal: discussing books read, projects completed, topics studied. For younger students, it might look more like a show-and-tell of their work. For high schoolers, it often becomes a deeper conversation about their learning trajectory and future plans.

After the review, the evaluator writes a formal report affirming that the student has made adequate educational progress. This document is what you retain in your files.

How to Prepare Your Portfolio for Evaluation

The most common first-year mistake is handing an evaluator a disorganized pile of papers and expecting them to sort through it. That creates a bad evaluation experience and an incomplete review. Evaluators are reviewing progress across your MCOS subjects — they need to be able to find evidence for each one quickly.

Organize your portfolio before the evaluation with these elements:

• Tab dividers by MCOS subject: Reading/Writing, Mathematics, Vermont and U.S. History/Government, Natural Sciences, Literature, and (for students under 13) Fine Arts, Physical Education, and Health
• Chronological samples within each subject: At minimum, an early-year and a late-year sample per subject. Three to five per subject tells a much cleaner story of progression
• Dated everything: Undated samples are nearly useless for demonstrating progression. Write the date on each piece of work as it is completed, not retroactively
• A brief parent summary page at the front of each subject section is helpful but not required — some evaluators appreciate the context, others prefer to draw their own conclusions

If your family uses unschooling or project-based learning approaches, the portfolio needs a translation layer: a parent narrative explaining how specific activities map to MCOS subjects. An evaluator cannot automatically connect "built a chicken coop" to natural sciences and geometry without the parent's documentation making that connection explicit.

The Vermont Portfolio & Assessment Templates include subject-specific organization templates and a parent summary format designed specifically for Vermont's MCOS requirements and age-based subject thresholds, which makes the pre-evaluation prep considerably more straightforward.

After the Evaluation

Once your evaluator submits their written report, file it with your other EOYA documentation. Vermont requires you to retain assessment records for at least two consecutive years. Keep a digital backup.

If you are moving toward Vermont's Dual Enrollment or Early College programs — which allow high school juniors and seniors to take free courses at the Community College of Vermont, Vermont State University, or other participating institutions — the evaluator's annual reports, combined with a well-organized transcript, are exactly the documentation that makes college applications credible.

A consistent pattern of annual teacher assessments also protects you in situations you cannot fully anticipate: if a co-parent disputes the adequacy of your home study program in family court, or if your child re-enrolls in public school mid-year and the district challenges prior learning credit. The evaluator's written record is third-party testimony that your program met Vermont's standards.

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