Colorado Homeschool Laws (2026): 14-Day Notice, 172 Days and Testing at Grades 3-11
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Updated
The year at a glance
No set date
- Test or evaluation at grades 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11
Depends on your first day
- Notice of intent, every year: 14 days before you start
Colorado requires written notice to a school district 14 days before starting and every year after, 172 days of instruction averaging four hours a day, permanent records, and a nationally standardized test or a qualified person's evaluation at grades 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11.
- File
- Notice of intent, every year, 14 days before you start Notice
- Count
- 172 days, averaging 4 hours a day Days and hours
- Keep
- Attendance, test/evaluation and immunization records, kept permanently Records
- Test
- At grades three, five, seven, nine and eleven — not every year Testing and evaluation
On this page
Colorado's home-based education law fits in one statute section, C.R.S. § 22-33-104.5, and it says so itself: nonpublic home-based programs get only "minimum state controls." Notice, a day count with a daily rate, four required subject areas, testing at five specific grades and permanent records cover the whole of it.
How to start
The legislature wrote its reasoning into the statute itself. Subsection (1) declares: "The general assembly hereby declares that it is the primary right and obligation of the parent to choose the proper education and training for children under his care and supervision. It is recognized that home-based education is a legitimate alternative to classroom attendance for the instruction of children and that any regulation of nonpublic home-based educational programs should be sufficiently flexible to accommodate a variety of circumstances. The general assembly further declares that nonpublic home-based educational programs shall be subject only to minimum state controls which are currently applicable to other forms of nonpublic education."
A "nonpublic home-based educational program" is instruction that happens in a home, given by the child's parent or by an adult relative the parent designates, outside a school district's supervision. The statute is explicit that this doesn't make the program a private school. A parent or that designated relative teaching under it doesn't need a Colorado teaching license either: the statute exempts them from the Colorado Educator Licensing Act of 1991 and from article 61's teacher-employment rules.
Home-based education is also a way out of compulsory attendance, with one carve-out for a child who was recently a habitual truant. Subsection (3)(b): "A child who is participating in a nonpublic home-based educational program is not subject to compulsory school attendance as provided in this article 33; except that any child who is habitually truant, as defined in section 22-33-102 (3.5), at any time during the last six months that the child attended school before proposed enrollment in a nonpublic home-based educational program may not be enrolled in the program unless the child's parents first submit a written description of the curricula to be used in the program along with the written notification of establishment of the program required in subsection (3)(e) of this section to any school district within the state."
Notice
Subsection (3)(e) sets the notice and its timing: "Any parent establishing a nonpublic home-based educational program shall provide written notification of the establishment of said program to a school district within the state fourteen days prior to the establishment of said program and each year thereafter if the program is maintained." The Colorado Department of Education's own FAQ puts the deadline the same way: "This written notification must be given 14 days before the parent or guardian establishes the homeschooling." So the notice comes before day one, not after, and it repeats every year the program runs — Colorado doesn't file once and forget it the way North Carolina does.
What the notice has to say is short. The statute goes on: "The parent in charge and in control of a nonpublic home-based educational program shall certify, in writing, only a statement containing the name, age, place of residence, and number of hours of attendance of each child enrolled in said program." Nothing beyond those four items is required.
Two ages bracket the requirement. Subsection (3)(e)(I)-(III) says "a parent who intends to establish a nonpublic home-based educational program is not required to: (I) Provide written notification of the program to a school district within the state until the parent's child is six years of age; (II) Establish the program until the parent's child is seven years of age; or (III) Continue the program or provide the notification after the child is sixteen years of age." Below six there's nothing to notify, and past sixteen there's nothing left to notify either.
No state form exists for this notice. CDE's FAQ describes the practice, not a statutory requirement: "The parent or guardian must provide written notification explaining the intent to homeschool his or her child. Notification can be given to any Colorado public school district office." CDE also posts a template families can use — the page offers to "Download a Notice of Intent Template" — but it's a convenience, not a mandate, and the department is direct that it plays no part in collecting the notice itself: "CDE does not collect Notice of Intent documents." That copy goes to your district, not to the state.
Required subjects
The subject list is one sentence, and it names areas rather than courses. Subsection (3)(d): "A nonpublic home-based educational program shall include, but need not be limited to, communication skills of reading, writing, and speaking, mathematics, history, civics, literature, science, and regular courses of instruction in the constitution of the United States as provided in section 22-1-108." The phrase "but need not be limited to" leaves room for anything more you choose to add; it sets a floor, not a ceiling, and Colorado prescribes no textbooks or curriculum to reach it.
Days and hours
Read the rule above closely: it's shaped differently from a state that sets a day count and a separate annual hour total. Colorado states one number of days and a daily rate to average across them, and never states a standalone hours-per-year figure of its own. A day that runs short can be balanced by a longer one elsewhere in the year, as long as the year's average holds.
The attendance tracker has a Colorado setting built on that same rate, and shows your running average alongside your day count. Lay out a full year ahead of time in the year planner to see where your target day lands on the calendar.
Records
Subsection (3)(g) names three kinds of records a home-based program keeps and sets no calendar limit on how long: attendance data, test and evaluation results, and immunization records under the state's immunization statutes. The permanence is deliberate, not an oversight — the box above quotes it in full.
Nothing here goes to a district on its own. The statute only asks for records to be produced "upon fourteen days' written notice if the superintendent of said school district has probable cause to believe that said program is not in compliance with the guidelines established in this subsection (3)." Short of that, a home-based program's files stay with the parent.
There's a practical payoff to keeping them well. If a home-schooled child later enrolls in public school, the statute says the district "shall accept the transcripts for credit from the non-public home-based educational program for any such child" — and can only reject them if it tests the child and the results don't back up what the transcripts claim. A dated, organized file makes that transition easier, whether or not it ever happens.
Testing and evaluation
Evaluation is tied to grade level, not to a yearly calendar. Subsection (3)(f): "Each child participating in a nonpublic home-based educational program shall be evaluated when such child reaches grades three, five, seven, nine, and eleven. Each child shall be given a nationally standardized achievement test to evaluate the child's academic progress, or a qualified person shall evaluate the child's academic progress." Outside those five grades, nothing is due.
A "qualified person" is defined narrowly. Subsection (2)(c): “"Qualified person" means an individual who is selected by the parent of a child who is participating in a nonpublic home-based educational program to evaluate such child's progress and who is a teacher licensed pursuant to article 60.5 of this title, a teacher who is employed by an independent or parochial school, a licensed psychologist, or a person with a graduate degree in education.”
Results go back to the district, not to CDE. "The test or evaluation results, whichever is appropriate, shall be submitted to the school district that received the notification... required by paragraph (e) of this subsection (3) or an independent or parochial school within the state of Colorado."
The score itself sets what happens next. "If test results submitted to the appropriate school district pursuant to the provisions of paragraph (f) of subsection (3) of this section show that a child participating in a nonpublic home-based educational program received a composite score on said test which was above the thirteenth percentile, such child shall continue to be exempt from the compulsory school attendance requirement of this article." Below that line the outcome is different: "If the child's composite score on said test is at or below the thirteenth percentile, the school district shall require the parents to place said child in a public or independent or parochial school until the next testing period; except that no action shall be taken until the child is given the opportunity to be retested using an alternate version of the same test or a different nationally standardized achievement test selected by the parent from a list of approved tests supplied by the state board." A retest comes before any placement, not instead of one.
Records checklist
- A copy of the written notice you sent, dated at least 14 days before you started, and a fresh copy filed each following year.
- The four facts your notice certified: child's name, age, place of residence, and hours of attendance.
- A day-by-day attendance log, kept as the year runs, showing your average hours per day.
- Test or evaluation results from every grade three, five, seven, nine or eleven year, with the name of whoever administered or gave the evaluation.
- Immunization records for each child.
- Anything a district might reasonably ask to see under a fourteen-day probable-cause request — keep it all together, since the law says none of it is ever thrown out.
Sources (2)
- C.R.S. § 22-33-104.5, Home-based education (Colorado General Assembly) content.leg.colorado.gov
- Colorado Department of Education: Homeschool FAQ for Families ed.cde.state.co.us
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