Washington · Record-Keeping Guide

Homeschool Record Keeping in Washington: The Declaration, the Assessment, and Your Files

Washington asks for an annual declaration, a broad eleven-subject program, and a yearly assessment that goes straight into your own files - not the district's. Here's the whole picture in plain English, and why the family with a tidy record never worries about any of it.

The Washington framework: declare, qualify, teach, assess

Washington's home-based instruction law (RCW 28A.200, with the qualification options in RCW 28A.225.010) asks four things:

File a Declaration of Intent with your local district superintendent each year by September 15, or within two weeks of the start of any public school quarter, trimester, or semester. It's a notification, not an application - no approval is involved.
Be qualified to supervise, by any one of four routes: 45 college quarter credits (30 semester credits), a parent-qualifying course, weekly supervision by a Washington-certificated teacher, or being deemed sufficiently qualified by your superintendent.
Teach the eleven subjects - reading, writing, spelling, language, math, science, social studies, history, health, occupational education, and art and music appreciation - in an amount comparable to the private-school benchmark of roughly 180 days or about 1,000 annual hours. The statute itself says home-based instruction is "less structured and more experiential" and that these provisions are to be "liberally construed."
Assess every year: an approved standardized test administered by a qualified person, or an academic progress assessment by a certificated teacher currently working in education. Either way, the result is filed in your records - it is not submitted to the district or the state.

The paperwork stays home Washington is a notify-and-keep state: the district sees one page a year (your declaration), and everything else - test scores or assessment reports, immunization records, and the records of your instructional activities - lives in your own file. That freedom has a flip side: the file has to actually exist, and it's yours to build.

What belongs in a Washington homeschool file

Each year's test or assessment result - the law expects these kept as part of your records.
Immunization records, kept alongside them.
Records of instructional and educational activities - the statute's own phrase. A dated daily log is the cleanest possible answer to it.
A sense of your days and hours - nobody audits the 1,000-hour benchmark, but a running count means never wondering.
Work samples and book lists - especially useful if you choose the certificated-teacher assessment route, where a reviewer looks at real progress.

How The Homeschool Log maps to each requirement

📅 "Records of instructional activities," solved in one sentence a day A sentence or two per subject each day becomes exactly the record the statute names - dated, organized by subject, and always current.

✅ Days and hours count themselves Set your targets and every logged day and minute adds up quietly toward the 180-day / 1,000-hour benchmark - no spreadsheet, no January panic-math.

🖼️ Evidence for the assessment, ready-made If a certificated teacher assesses your child's progress, a year of dated entries, work-sample photos, and a complete book list makes that meeting short and glowing.

🧾 Your annual file, assembled in minutes Generate a year-end report - narrative summaries, the attendance register, book lists, and work samples - and drop it in the folder next to the test results. See a sample report →

Build the file Washington expects

Log as you go, snap the good work, and your records keep themselves - ready for the assessment, and for the folder.

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Prefer paper for now? Take the free weekly log sheet. 🖨️

Our free one-page weekly log sheet, designed like the app. We'll email it straight to you, with a couple of helpful extras that week - then we leave your inbox in peace.

This guide summarizes RCW 28A.200 and related provisions in plain language for convenience. It isn't legal advice, and district practices vary; verify current requirements with your district or a group like the Washington Homeschool Organization or HSLDA.