Pennsylvania is widely considered to have the most comprehensive homeschool requirements in the country. That reputation is well-earned — the law under 24 P.S. § 13-1327.1 requires annual affidavits, detailed portfolios, standardized testing in specific grades, and a yearly evaluation by a certified professional.

It sounds like a lot. And it is more than most states. But it's also entirely manageable once you understand exactly what's required and what a good year-round system looks like. Pennsylvania families who stay on top of their records throughout the year sail through evaluations. The ones who scramble are the ones who try to reconstruct everything in June.

Here's the complete picture, broken down clearly.

What Pennsylvania Requires: The Overview

  1. Annual notarized affidavit filed with your school district superintendent by August 1
  2. 180 days or 900/990 hours of instruction per year
  3. Required subjects — different lists for elementary and secondary
  4. A portfolio maintained throughout the year
  5. Standardized testing in grades 3, 5, and 8
  6. Annual evaluation by a qualified evaluator, submitted to the superintendent by June 30
  7. Criminal background certification for all adults in the home (included in the affidavit)
  8. High school diploma or equivalent for the supervising parent

Let's go through each one.

1. The Annual Affidavit

Before you begin homeschooling, and by August 1 every year after that, you must submit a notarized affidavit (or unsworn declaration) to the superintendent of your school district of residence.

What the affidavit must include:

  • Your name (as supervisor)
  • Name and age of each child
  • Your address and phone number
  • An outline of proposed educational objectives by subject area
  • Immunization records or a valid exemption
  • Certification that the home education program will comply with PA law
  • Certification that you, all adults in the home, and anyone with legal custody of the children have not been convicted of certain criminal offenses in the past five years

Notarized or unsworn declaration: You have two options — a traditional notarized affidavit, or an "unsworn declaration" which doesn't require a notary. Both are legally valid. The unsworn declaration is increasingly popular because it's simpler.

Send by certified mail and keep the return receipt. You want documented proof of delivery.

The objectives don't need to be detailed. One to three broad objectives per subject is sufficient — "Continue to develop reading fluency and comprehension" covers English at the elementary level. The school district cannot prevent you from homeschooling based on your objectives or require you to meet specific benchmarks.

2. Instructional Time Requirements

  • Elementary (K–6): 180 days or 900 hours of instruction per year
  • Secondary (7–12): 180 days or 990 hours of instruction per year

You meet the requirement with either days OR hours — not both. Most families track days, but hour tracking gives you more flexibility if your school days vary significantly in length.

3. Required Subjects

Pennsylvania has the most extensive required subject list of any state, and it differs by grade level.

Elementary Level (Grades K–6)

  • English (spelling, reading, writing)
  • Arithmetic
  • Science
  • Geography
  • History of the United States and Pennsylvania
  • Civics
  • Safety education (including fire prevention)
  • Health and physiology
  • Physical education
  • Music
  • Art

Important note: The law does not require you to cover all of these subjects every year. It requires that they are covered at some point during the elementary years. So a year focused heavily on English, math, and science while touching on the others is fine.

Secondary Level (Grades 7–12)

  • English (language, literature, speech, composition)
  • Science
  • Geography
  • Social studies (civics, world history, U.S. and Pennsylvania history)
  • Mathematics (general math, algebra, geometry)
  • Art
  • Music
  • Physical education
  • Health
  • Safety education (including fire prevention)

Optional secondary subjects you may add: economics, biology, chemistry, foreign languages, trigonometry.

High School Graduation Requirements (Grades 9–12)

To receive a PA homeschool diploma, students must complete minimum credits including:

  • 4 years of English
  • 3 years of mathematics
  • 3 years of science
  • 3 years of social studies
  • 2 years of arts and humanities

4. The Portfolio

The portfolio is the heart of Pennsylvania compliance — and the part that trips up families who wait until evaluation time to pull it together.

Your portfolio must include:

A contemporaneous log — a record of educational activities made at the time of instruction (not reconstructed later), designating by title the reading materials used. This means daily or weekly lesson entries that include book titles. "Completed Chapters 12–14 of Story of the World Vol. 2" is the right level of detail.

Student work samples — writings, worksheets, workbooks, or creative materials used or developed by the student. Date everything. Collect samples throughout the year, not just at the end.

Standardized test results (in grades 3, 5, and 8 — see below).

The portfolio is yours — you don't submit it to the school district. Your evaluator reviews it, and only the evaluator's certification goes to the superintendent.

What makes a strong PA portfolio:

  • Daily or weekly lesson log entries with dated, titled reading materials
  • Work samples from multiple points in the year showing progress
  • A running book list
  • Dated tests, quizzes, and written work
  • Any extracurricular or outside-the-home educational activities documented

5. Standardized Testing in Grades 3, 5, and 8

In grades 3, 5, and 8, your student must take a nationally normed standardized test in reading/language arts and mathematics (or the state's PSSA tests). Test results must be included in the portfolio for those years.

Important details:

  • You cannot administer the test yourself — it must be given by a qualified test administrator
  • You don't submit scores to the school district — they go in your portfolio for the evaluator to review
  • Many PA homeschool co-ops and evaluators offer group testing each spring
  • Common approved tests: Iowa Assessments, Stanford Achievement Test (SAT-10), TerraNova, CAT
  • There is no minimum passing score — the requirement is to take the test, not to achieve a specific result

6. The Annual Evaluation

Every year, your student's portfolio must be reviewed by a qualified evaluator, and the evaluator must submit a written certification to your superintendent by June 30.

Who can evaluate:

  • A licensed clinical or school psychologist
  • A Pennsylvania-certified teacher with at least two years of teaching experience
  • A nonpublic school teacher or administrator with at least two years of teaching experience in the past ten years

For elementary portfolios, the evaluator must have experience in subjects like English, arithmetic, science, geography, and U.S./PA history. For secondary portfolios, experience in English, science, math (including algebra and geometry), social studies, or geography.

What the evaluation involves:

  • A review of your portfolio
  • An interview with your student
  • A written certification stating whether or not an "appropriate education" is occurring

"Appropriate education" in PA law means instruction in the required subjects for the required time, in which the student demonstrates sustained progress. The bar is progress, not perfection.

Only the certification goes to the superintendent — not the portfolio itself. Keep the portfolio in your own files.

Finding an evaluator: The Christian Homeschool Association of Pennsylvania (CHAP) maintains an evaluator directory at chaponline.com. HSLDA also has resources. Many families use the same evaluator for years and build a relationship that makes evaluations straightforward.

Missing the June 30 deadline has real consequences. The superintendent must send you a 10-day notice. If that's missed, a formal hearing is required. Repeat compliance failures can result in loss of homeschooling rights for up to a year. Don't miss June 30.

The Two Critical Deadlines

Write these on your calendar now:

August 1 — Notarized affidavit (or unsworn declaration) due to your superintendent for the coming school year.

June 30 — Evaluator's certification due to your superintendent for the school year just completed.

Everything else — the portfolio, the testing, the daily lesson logs — feeds into these two deadlines.

What a Good PA Record-Keeping Routine Looks Like

Given PA's requirements, here's the daily and annual rhythm that keeps families compliant without burning out:

Daily (5 minutes): Log what you taught, including any book titles used. Mark attendance. This is your contemporaneous log — it cannot be reconstructed accurately from memory months later.

Throughout the year: Collect and date work samples. Keep a running reading list. Save test results and any formal assessments.

Grades 3, 5, and 8 years: Register for standardized testing in the spring. Most evaluators or co-ops offer testing in April or May, leaving time to include results in the portfolio before the June evaluation.

May: Schedule your annual evaluation. Don't wait until June — evaluators book up.

By June 30: Evaluator submits certification to superintendent. Your job is done for the year.

By August 1: Submit next year's affidavit.

Pennsylvania Is Manageable With the Right System

The families who find PA homeschool compliance overwhelming are usually the ones keeping records reactively — scrambling to document the year before the evaluator comes. The families who find it manageable are the ones who log daily, collect work samples as they go, and treat the annual evaluation as a routine check-in rather than a high-stakes audit.

A daily lesson log that takes five minutes is the single highest-leverage habit for any PA homeschool family. Everything else — the portfolio, the evaluator's review, the superintendent's certification — flows from that daily record.

Key Pennsylvania Homeschool Resources:

  • CHAP (Christian Homeschool Association of PA) — chaponline.com — evaluator directory, testing resources, annual conference
  • HSLDA Pennsylvania — hslda.org — legal support and state law summaries
  • Homeschool Pennsylvania — homeschoolpennsylvania.org — comprehensive legal guides and subject requirement details
  • PA Department of Education Home Education page — pa.gov — official affidavit forms and state guidance

For a comparison of requirements across all 50 states, see our homeschool laws by state guide. If your student is approaching high school, our guide to creating a homeschool transcript covers PA's graduation credit requirements in detail. For general record keeping best practices that apply in any state, see our getting started with homeschool record keeping guide.

Pennsylvania's portfolio requirement makes a daily lesson logging habit non-negotiable. Homeschool Ledger's free-form logging lets you record what you taught, the books you used, and attendance in one place — and generates a clean record for your evaluator when June comes. Download it free