Maine regulates homeschooling as “home instruction,” and the structure is light but specific: one written notice when you begin, a short letter every September after that with the year's assessment attached, at least 175 days of instruction a year, and a named list of subjects. There is no curriculum approval and no teacher qualification requirement. The state treats the parent as the school: you choose the materials, run the program, keep the records, and at the end grant the diploma.
Legal framework
Home instruction is an exception to compulsory attendance under 20-A Maine Revised Statutes 5001-A(3)(A)(4), which spells out the notice, subject, day-count and assessment rules in one place. The Maine Department of Education's Home Instruction pages publish the current forms and run an online Home Instruction Portal for filings; paper filings go to the resident superintendent's office.
Notification & registration
The parent provides a written notice of intent to provide home instruction simultaneously to the school officials of the administrative unit in which the student resides and to the commissioner, within 10 calendar days of the beginning of home instruction. The notice states the student's name and age, the start date, and an assurance that the program will deliver at least 175 days annually of instruction in the required subjects.
On or before September 1 of each subsequent year, the parent files a letter with the same two recipients stating the intention to continue home instruction, and encloses the results of the previous year's annual assessment.
Recordkeeping
The required subjects are English and language arts, math, science, social studies, physical education, health education, library skills, fine arts and, in at least one grade from grade 6 to 12, Maine studies. In one grade from 7 to 12 the student must also demonstrate proficiency in the use of computers.
The annual assessment attached to each September letter can take one of five forms: a standardized achievement test; a test developed by local school officials; a review of the student's progress by a Maine-certified teacher; a review by a local homeschool support group whose membership includes a certified teacher; or a review by a local advisory board. Beyond that, Maine collects nothing, so the working file of course lists, work samples and the high school transcript stays with the family.
Graduation requirements
Maine sets no graduation or credit requirements for home-instructed students. Once the family has complied with the home instruction statute through the student's seventeenth birthday, when compulsory attendance ends, the parent alone determines the course of study for the high school years and decides when it is complete. Homeschoolers of Maine, the statewide support organization, is direct about it: families determine when the course of study has been completed, create a transcript and grant a diploma. Aligning that transcript with Maine public high school graduation requirements is a useful reference, not a legal obligation.
Who issues the diploma
The parent operating the home instruction program issues the diploma in the name of the family's program, backed by the transcript the family maintained. No Maine agency or school district issues a credential for completing home instruction, and the annual filings are compliance paperwork, not a diploma pathway.
College & military recognition
The University of Maine System publishes a written Home Educated Student Application Guide for its Early College dual-enrollment programs. Home-educated students apply like everyone else, except the home educating parent acts as both parent and school counselor, completing the parent consent form and the recommendation form. Transcripts are required by the University of Maine and its regional campus at Machias the first time a home-educated student applies for a course, and for freshmen, sophomores, or courses with prerequisites the family supplies supporting documentation such as AP, PSAT, SAT, ACT or CLEP scores, placement tests, or prior coursework.
For freshman admission, University of Maine System campuses and the Maine Community College System accept applications from home-instructed graduates with a parent-issued transcript and diploma; keeping course descriptions and a resource list from ninth grade on makes those applications easier to document. Homeschool graduates qualify for Tier 1 military enlistment under current DoD policy.
Official source
For current statutory text, forms, and procedural updates, the authoritative source is the Maine Department of Education - Home Instruction. Homeschool laws change, so confirm specific requirements directly with the state before relying on them.
Maine homeschool organizations
State agencies publish the rules, but they rarely help you interpret them. For that, Maine homeschool families generally turn to Homeschoolers of Maine (HOME), the statewide homeschool association. Groups like this one track legislative changes, run conventions and support-group networks, and answer the practical questions that statutes leave open. We are not affiliated with them and receive nothing for the mention; they are simply the most useful next stop after the state's own guidance.