How to Homeschool Your Child in Colorado

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Laura from youngwritersworshops.com and I'm going to talk about how to home school your child in Colorado. Colorado has three options for legally; to fulfill the, what's required as a legal home school family. And you'll want to check on all the specifics of the options before you decide which one is right for you. Basically you can file, give fourteen days notice and file as home school directly for your family. And this is an annual thing you'll need to do if you're going to home school. This means that you'll have to keep track of the hours of attendance if you do that option. And immunization records, that type of thing. So you're basically acting like a school. The other option is if you enroll in an independent school which already exists but you teach your children at home and… And the third option if you are a certified teacher you don't have to go through any of those other steps of attendance and record keeping, and you can just teach your child at home. Now the standardized testing in Colorado does, there are two options. One is to do the standardized test; the other is to hire an evaluation person to evaluate your child. And again there are specific bits of information about these different options so you'll want to research them a little bit. Find out through your State Department of Education exactly what they are and then decide which is the best option for you. In California or I'm sorry, in Colorado as everywhere there are a lot of existing networks, co-ops of home schooling families so definitely find out what the ones in the area are. They may have an online group or you may find another way that they meet. But having a group like this is really important for a home schooling family, so that the kids can really have some time to spend with other kids their age. They have fun together; you can organize outings and class experiences that kids will all really benefit from. So I recommend finding a group like that and getting all of the information about your legal obligations in order to home school in Colorado."