Maryland · Record-Keeping Guide

Homeschool Record Keeping in Maryland: What the Portfolio Reviews Actually Require

Maryland runs on one thing: a portfolio that shows regular, thorough instruction, reviewed by your county up to three times a year. Here's the whole picture in plain English, and how to keep a portfolio that makes every review a formality.

The Maryland framework: notify, teach, and keep the portfolio

Maryland's home instruction regulation (COMAR 13A.10.01) runs on three commitments. If you homeschool under the standard portfolio option with your county, you:

File the notification form with your local school system at least 15 days before you begin (one form, signed once, and you update it annually).
Provide regular, thorough instruction in English, mathematics, science, social studies, art, music, health, and physical education, appropriate to your child's age and ability.
Maintain a portfolio of relevant materials - the regulation names instructional materials, reading materials, and examples of your child's writings, worksheets, workbooks, creative materials, and tests - and make it available for review when the local school system asks. Reviews may happen up to three times a year (in practice most counties do one or two, around the end of each semester).

What Maryland does NOT require No standardized testing, no minimum hour counts, no quarterly paperwork. The whole system rests on one thing: a portfolio that shows regular, thorough instruction actually happening. Which means the family with a steady, dated record walks into every review relaxed.

Families enrolled with a registered church-exempt umbrella or an approved correspondence program follow that supervisor's rules instead of county reviews; this guide covers the standard portfolio route.

What reviewers actually want to see

Dated, regular evidence - instruction across the months since the last review, not a stack assembled the night before.
Every required subject represented - a little art, music, health, and PE evidence matters as much as the math.
Reading materials - the regulation names them specifically; a running book list is the cleanest possible answer.
Work samples over time - worksheets, writings, and creative work showing progress.

How The Homeschool Log maps to each requirement

📅 Regular, thorough instruction - proven A sentence or two per subject each day becomes a dated record of exactly the "regular, thorough instruction" the regulation asks about, with every required subject visible at a glance.

📗 Reading materials The book log keeps every title, author, and reading level; snap a cover and it fills itself in. Your reading list prints as its own portfolio section.

🖼️ Writings, worksheets, and creative materials Photograph the work when it happens; photos file themselves by date and subject and appear in the work-samples section automatically - PE and art included.

🧾 Review day, assembled in minutes Before a review, pick the date range since the last one and generate the portfolio: narrative subject summaries drafted from your own entries, the book list, and your work samples, ready to print or bring on a tablet. See a sample report →

Walk into every review relaxed

Log as you go, snap the good work, and your portfolio assembles itself before each county review.

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Why records matter in every state →

This guide summarizes COMAR 13A.10.01 in plain language for convenience. It isn't legal advice, and county practices vary; verify current requirements with your local school system's home instruction office or a group like MHEA or HSLDA.