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Step 1
Know that states vary widely in their legal requirements for home schooling. Rules will cover teaching requirements, subjects to be covered and testing.
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Step 2
Wyoming, for example, requires that public and private schools must be in session for 175 days a year but is not specific regarding any attendance requirement for home schooling. No teacher qualifications are required. No advance notice, approval, record keeping or testing are needed. The subject matter should consist of a "basic academic educational program" that offers a "sequentially progressive curriculum of fundamental instruction in reading, writing, math, civics, history, literature, and science." Each year the local school board has to be notified that the program is being followed. Wyoming has some of the looser states, compared to states like Massachusetts that offers far stricter oversight
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Step 3
Find a local support group. Laws can change and local officials can sometimes be problematic. A group will allow you to swap ideas. More importantly it will allow you to brush up on your own education. It's a real challenge to suddenly help a loved one with algebra and calculus when they weren't your own best subjects. Through a support group you could relearn academic material in which you might be weak or offer to swap expertise with other parents to build a community of well educated kids. Since you are spending far more time with your children than those parents who pack their kids on a school bus every day, a group of home schooling parents can offer invaluable emotional support when things don't go as well as you had first hoped and start to feel overwhelmed.
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Step 4
Line up legal resources. It's better to know where they are before you need them. Look into the Home School Legal Defense Association HSLDA or the more loosely affiliated Association for Home Schooling, www.ahsa-usa.org Through both sites, you'll find attorneys to defend you legal right to home school your children.
