Homeschooling in Rhode Island

Home instruction can start at any point in the year; it does not have to begin in September. Have the committee's decision in hand before your child stays home, since attendance is not excused until then. Your superintendent's office explains the local process, and the Special Education Office handles plans for a child with special education needs.

Building the plan

You may copy the public school curriculum, use correspondence courses, or design your own. RIDE points to the curriculum framework in the Basic Education Program regulations (200-RICR-20-10-1, section 1.2.1) as a resource. An online program can be part of the plan only if the school committee approves it; the state's virtual learning rules apply only to public schools. You may also teach any subject in another language, as long as the required subjects are taught in English.

Before you go, ask the school for copies of report cards, test scores, and any special education evaluations.

Two kinds of records come from the law and your approval:

• Attendance registers, returned under R.I. Gen. Laws 16-19-2 to the school committee, the superintendent, truant officers, and RIDE
• Progress reports and test scores, kept when you and the committee agree that you will test at home

Regular reports on attendance and progress go to the person in charge of home instruction in your district.

Some districts issue a certificate for each completed course so you can maintain your child's academic record. Ask whether yours does when you seek approval. Your own course list and grades will carry your child's record into high school credit decisions and college applications.

Rhode Island has no statewide homeschool test. If testing is how your child's progress will be evaluated, you and district representatives agree on the site, and you can propose testing at home or at another place off school premises. Your child does not have to go to the school for testing or any other reason.

Testing is one way to evaluate progress, not a requirement. Whatever method you and the committee choose has to cover all the required subjects, and if it is testing, it may happen at regular intervals during the year.

Every school district must find and evaluate children with disabilities who live in it, homeschooled children included (34 CFR 300.111). If your child is eligible for special education, the Special Education Office of your local district decides with you how those needs will be met.

Textbooks and activities

Your school committee must lend, free of charge on request, textbooks on the commissioner's annual list in mathematics, science, modern foreign languages, English language arts, and history and social studies to every pupil who lives in the community (R.I. Gen. Laws 16-23-2). RIDE says the loan includes e-books. You buy other materials.

Each school committee decides whether a homeschooled child may join public school programs and activities. The Commissioner of Education has encouraged districts to allow academic, extracurricular, and interscholastic participation when space is available and it costs the district nothing.

Whether your child receives a diploma depends on your district. Some districts issue a certificate of completion of a home schooling program at the end of grade 12; others issue certificates for individual courses. State law does not give homeschoolers a state diploma.

Your child can take the General Educational Development (GED) test for a high school equivalency diploma. A superintendent may also waive compulsory attendance for a student with an alternative learning plan for a diploma or its equivalent.

RIDE notes that some colleges do not require a high school diploma and will accept homeschooled students. Each college sets its own admission rules for a homeschool graduate, and Rhode Island law sets no homeschool admission standard for its public colleges.

The attendance law excuses a child who has been accepted into an accredited postsecondary education program, so a teen under 18 who starts college full time does not also need approved home instruction. RIDE's home instruction guidance does not address dual enrollment, so each college decides whether to admit a homeschooled high school student to its courses.

Homeschool dual enrollment in Rhode Island

Athletics fall under the same school committee decision as other activities, and RIDE says children who want to play in Rhode Island Interscholastic League (RIIL) programs must meet additional requirements. Ask the principal or athletic director for the RIIL home-school eligibility rule, and the records it requires, before the season's registration and tryout dates.

Answers differ from town to town, because each school committee sets its own participation policy.

Homeschool sports eligibility in Rhode Island

Rhode Island has no homeschool tax credit, deduction, education savings account, or voucher. The state's support is the textbook loan described above: approved textbooks in five core subjects, borrowed free from your school committee. You pay for other instructional materials and any testing your evaluation plan calls for.

The community pays for the loaned books, and your school committee may set rules for their care and return.

Homeschool tax breaks and funding in Rhode Island

Rhode Island law sets no special placement rule for a homeschooled child who enrolls in public school, and it neither requires nor forbids accepting homeschool credits. The district places your child and decides which high school credits to accept under its own policies.

The district already holds the attendance registers and progress reports you returned during home instruction. Your own records and test scores fill in the rest, which matters most when high school credits are being counted toward graduation.

If the school committee refuses your plan, you may appeal to RIDE, which holds a hearing after notice and decides without cost to the parties; a further appeal goes to the board of regents, whose decision is final. Any interested resident may also appeal an approval.

A parent who keeps a child home without an approved program can be fined up to $50 for each day missed. Over 30 school days in a year, a conviction can bring up to six months in prison, a fine of up to $500, or both. Before referring a truant student to family court, a school must talk with the parent and try other interventions.