How to File Georgia's Declaration of Intent to Homeschool

Filing Georgia's Declaration of Intent to Homeschool is the single legal step that turns "we're thinking about homeschooling" into "we're homeschooling." It takes about ten minutes online, costs nothing, and nobody has to approve it. Here's exactly where the form lives, when it's due, and what you're responsible for once it's submitted.

In This Article

1. What Is the Georgia Declaration of Intent to Homeschool?
2. Who Has to File It, and Who Doesn't?
3. When Is the Deadline, and What If You Miss It?
4. How Do You File the Declaration of Intent, Step by Step?
5. What Happens After You Submit?
6. What Are Georgia's Ongoing Homeschool Requirements?
7. What Are the Most Common Filing Mistakes?
8. How Do You Keep the Records Georgia Asks For?
9. Frequently Asked Questions

What Is the Georgia Declaration of Intent to Homeschool?

The Declaration of Intent to Homeschool is a state notification form filed with the Georgia Department of Education that tells the state a child is being educated at home rather than enrolled in a public or private school. It is required under Georgia's home study law, O.C.G.A. § 20-2-690.

Two things surprise most first-time filers. First, it's free — there is no fee attached to the form. Second, it's not an application. You are informing the state of a decision you have already made, not requesting permission. No one reviews your curriculum, visits your home, or signs off before you can begin.

⚠️ Watch out for outdated instructions. Plenty of older blog posts and county pages still tell Georgia families to mail a paper declaration to their local school superintendent. Filing now goes to GaDOE directly through its online system. If a source tells you to contact the county, check the date on it.

Georgia sits in the middle of the regulatory spectrum — notification plus record-keeping, without pre-approval. If you're comparing states because you're relocating or unsure how strict your situation is, our overview of homeschooling requirements by state shows how different those rules can get.

Key takeaway: The declaration is a free, one-page notification filed with the state — not an application anyone approves.

Who Has to File It, and Who Doesn't?

Any parent or guardian home-educating a child within Georgia's compulsory attendance range — ages 6 through 16 — must file the declaration. Below age 6 and after age 16, the requirement doesn't apply, though many families file anyway for a clean paper trail.

The edge cases are where people get stuck:

Your situation	Do you file?	By when?
Starting home study in August	Yes	Within 30 days of starting
Withdrawing from a Georgia school in October	Yes	Within 30 days of withdrawal
Child turns 6 in March	Yes, once home study begins	Within 30 days
Enrolled in an accredited private online school	No — the school reports enrollment	N/A
Moving to Georgia from Florida mid-year	Yes	Within 30 days of beginning home study in Georgia

That fourth row trips up a lot of families. If your child is formally enrolled in an accredited private school that happens to deliver instruction online, that school handles reporting — you are not running a home study program. If you use an online program as curriculum while you remain the teacher of record, you are. Our guide to accredited online curriculum explains where that line sits.

When Is the Deadline, and What If You Miss It?

Two deadlines govern homeschooling in Georgia: within 30 days of beginning your home study program, and then annually between September 1 and September 30. The renewal is required every year, even if nothing about your family has changed.

⚠️ The second-year trap. Families who file mid-year often assume they're covered for twelve months from that date. They aren't. The renewal window is September 1–30 regardless of when you first filed. Set a recurring calendar reminder for September 1 the day you submit.

If you realize you've missed the window, file as soon as you notice. Georgia doesn't attach an automatic penalty to a late declaration; the enforcement path runs through compulsory attendance law, which is why an accurate attendance record matters as much as the form itself. Keep your confirmation email — it's the simplest proof that you notified the state and when.

Attendance is the other clock running in the background. Georgia's home study rules set an instructional year, and knowing how to track your 180 days and daily hours from day one saves you reconstructing a year from memory.

Key takeaway: Within 30 days to start, September 1–30 to renew, every single year.

How Do You File the Declaration of Intent, Step by Step?

Filing takes roughly ten minutes if you gather your information first. Here's the sequence:

1. Go to the Georgia Department of Education website and open the Home Study / Declaration of Intent section.
2. Create or sign in to a GaDOE portal account using an email address you actually check — your confirmation and future renewal reminders go there.
3. Enter the parent or guardian name and the home address where instruction takes place.
4. Add each child in the home study program: full legal name, date of birth, and grade level.
5. Confirm your 12-month school year start date. This is your declared instructional year, not a promise about specific days.
6. Submit, then download or screenshot the confirmation. Save it somewhere you'll find it in three years.

Gather this before you open the portal:

• Parent/guardian full name — as it appears on official documents
• Home address — the address where teaching happens
• Each child's full name and date of birth
• Each child's grade level — assign the grade the child would be entering
• Your local school district name — the form asks for it

Once the form is submitted, the paperwork stage of homeschool Georgia is essentially finished and the real work starts. If you're building a first-year plan from scratch, our step-by-step checklist for new homeschool families covers what to sort out next.

What Happens After You Submit?

Nothing arrives in the mail, and nobody approves you. You receive a confirmation, GaDOE logs the declaration, and you are legally homeschooling. That confirmation is the document to produce if a district ever asks for evidence of your home study program.

One step the declaration does not do for you: withdraw your child from their current school.

⚠️ School withdrawal is separate. A family pulling a child out of a Gwinnett County elementary in October should file the declaration with the state and send a short written withdrawal notice to the school office that same week. Skip the second step and the school keeps marking your child absent.

Your withdrawal note can be three sentences: your child's name, that you are withdrawing them to begin a home study program under O.C.G.A. § 20-2-690, and the effective date. Keep a copy.

Key takeaway: Declaration to the state, withdrawal letter to the Georgia school — two different jobs, both yours.

What Are Georgia's Ongoing Homeschool Requirements?

Four duties continue after you file, all set out in Georgia's home study statute. None of them are routinely submitted to anyone — you keep them.

Requirement	Frequency	Goes to	How long to keep
180 days of instruction, about 4.5 hours per day	Ongoing	Kept by parent	With your records
Attendance records	Monthly	Kept by parent	With your records
Written progress report in 5 subjects	Annually	Kept by parent	3 years
Standardized achievement test	Every 3 years from end of grade 3	Kept by parent	With your records

A Georgia annual progress report is a parent-written narrative or graded summary of the child's work in the five required subject areas: reading, language arts, math, social studies, and science. There is no state template. A page per child, written in plain language, satisfies the intent.

The three-year retention rule is the one that catches people off guard, because it means a binder you filled in 2026 still matters in 2029. If you'd rather not manage that as paper, our comparison of homeschool record keeping software covers digital options built for exactly this.

Requirements can be updated, so confirm the current details on GaDOE's home study pages before your first filing and again each September.

What Are the Most Common Filing Mistakes?

Five mistakes cause most of the stress Georgia families report:

• Mailing the form to the county — file through the state portal instead.
• Forgetting the September renewal — set the reminder the day you first file.
• Listing the wrong grade level for a mid-year starter — enter the grade the child is currently in, not the one they'll enter next fall.
• Never saving the confirmation — download it immediately; it's your only proof.
• Assuming the declaration withdraws the child — send a separate written notice to the school.

Key takeaway: Every one of these is fixable in under ten minutes if you catch it early.

How Do You Keep the Records Georgia Asks For?

Pick one place for attendance days, subject coverage, and your progress narrative — then log as you teach, instead of reconstructing the year in May. Georgia's five required subjects map neatly onto a simple weekly log, so the annual report becomes a summary of notes you already have.

Method	Setup time	Annual report effort	Portability
Paper binder	Low	High — written from scratch	Physical only
Spreadsheet, one tab per child	Medium	Medium — summarise your own rows	Good
Digital tracker	Low	Low — records build as you go	Good

That last row is where the burden genuinely shifts. If the part you dread is writing five subject narratives per child each spring and keeping three years of it findable, a planning tool that logs what was actually taught and produces progress notes as you go removes the reconstruction work entirely — you stay the teacher while the planning gets handled, and the evening you'd have spent assembling records goes back to your family.

Whatever you choose, consistency beats sophistication. Our guide to homeschool progress tracking walks through building a habit that holds up in busy weeks.

Summary

The Georgia Declaration of Intent to Homeschool is a free online notification filed with the state within 30 days of starting, and renewed every September 1–30. No one approves it. Remember to withdraw your child from school separately in writing, and to keep attendance, an annual progress report, and periodic test results at home. Get those habits in place early and Georgia's rules stay quietly in the background where they belong.

Paperwork filed? Let LearnSpark handle the rest — build your lessons and keep Georgia-ready progress records automatically. Start free.

Frequently Asked Questions

Short answers to the questions Georgia families ask most often after filing.

Is there a fee to file the Georgia Declaration of Intent?

A: No. Filing through the Georgia Department of Education's online system is free. There is no cost to submit the initial declaration or any annual renewal. If a website asks you to pay to file, you are not on the state's official page.

Do I file a separate declaration for each child?

A: No. One declaration per family covers every child in your home study program. You will, however, enter each child individually — full name, date of birth, and current grade level — so have those details ready before you start.

Can I start homeschooling in Georgia mid-year?

A: Yes. File your declaration within 30 days of beginning home study, and send a written school withdrawal notice to your child's current school. You'll still file again during the following September 1–30 renewal window, regardless of when you started.

Does Georgia require homeschool parents to have a diploma?

A: Yes. Georgia's home study law generally requires the parent or guardian providing instruction to hold a high school diploma or GED, but families should confirm current requirements directly with GaDOE. No teaching certificate or college degree is required. Confirm the current wording with GaDOE if your situation is unusual.

Do I have to send my progress reports or test scores to the state?

A: No. Annual progress reports are kept at home for three years, and standardized test results are retained by the parent. Neither is routinely submitted to GaDOE — but keep both organised in case a district ever requests documentation.

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