Washington regulates homeschooling as "home-based instruction," with a yearly declaration of intent filed at the school district, a parent qualification requirement with four ways to meet it, and an annual test or assessment whose results stay in the family's records. Alongside those obligations sits one of the stronger parental authority clauses in any state statute: all decisions relating to philosophy or doctrine, selection of books, teaching materials and curriculum, and methods, timing, and place in the provision or evaluation of home-based instruction are the responsibility of the parent, except for the matters the chapter specifically regulates.
Legal framework
Two pieces of the Revised Code of Washington do the work. RCW 28A.225.010 makes school attendance compulsory for children age eight and under eighteen and defines home-based instruction as planned and supervised instructional activities covering the basic skills of occupational education, science, mathematics, language, social studies, history, health, reading, writing, spelling, and the development of an appreciation of art and music, for hours equivalent to approved private schools, which RCW 28A.195.010 sets at a school-wide annual average of 1,000 instructional hours for grades one through twelve and at least 450 hours for kindergarten.
The same section supplies the parent qualification options: instruction supervised by a Washington-certificated person who has monthly contact averaging an hour a week and evaluates progress; a parent who has earned 45 college-level quarter credit hours or the semester equivalent; a parent who has completed a course in home-based instruction at a postsecondary or vocational-technical institution; or a parent deemed sufficiently qualified by the local district superintendent. Chapter 28A.200 then lays out the parent's annual duties, and RCW 28A.200.020 contains the parental authority clause quoted above.
Notification & registration
Under RCW 28A.200.010, the parent files a signed declaration of intent by September 15 of the school year or within two weeks of the beginning of any public school quarter, trimester, or semester, which is how a family starts mid-year. It goes to the superintendent of the district where the parent resides, or to a nonresident district that has accepted the student as a transfer. The declaration states the child's name and age and whether a certificated person will supervise the instruction, in a format the superintendent prescribes. The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction publishes a declaration form, a part-time attendance request form, and the Pink Book, its plain-language guide to the home-based instruction laws.
Recordkeeping
Each year the parent must ensure the student either takes a standardized achievement test approved by the State Board of Education, administered by a qualified individual, or receives an annual assessment of academic progress written by a certificated person currently working in the field of education. The results are not filed with the state: the parent keeps them, along with immunization records, and forwards records if the child later enrolls in school. If the test or assessment shows the child is not making reasonable progress consistent with age or stage of development, the statute requires the parent to make a good faith effort to remedy the deficiency. Failing to carry out these duties is treated as unexcused absence under the truancy laws, so the paper trail matters.
Graduation requirements
Washington sets no graduation or credit requirements for home-based instruction; the parent determines when the program is complete. For high school planning, the College Academic Distribution Requirements that the Washington Student Achievement Council and the public four-year universities apply to freshman applicants are the practical transcript target, since home-based applicants must meet the same minimums as everyone else.
Who issues the diploma
The parent conducting the home-based instruction program issues the diploma in the name of the family's program, signed by the parent. No statute in chapter 28A.200 gives the district or OSPI a role in certifying that a home-based student finished high school; the declaration of intent is a compliance filing, not a credential, and the transcript the parent maintains is the student's academic record.
College & military recognition
Running Start, Washington's dual enrollment program under RCW 28A.600.310, names homeschoolers expressly: eligibility for eleventh and twelfth grade students includes "students receiving home-based instruction under chapter 28A.200 RCW," who register through a public district and take college courses with tuition largely covered, the college being allowed to charge only limited fees, with waivers for low-income students. Many Washington homeschool graduates arrive at college with substantial Running Start credit.
The University of Washington publishes a dedicated homeschool admissions page: home-schooled applicants are assessed in the same holistic review as other freshmen, must meet the same College Academic Distribution Requirements, and, unlike other applicants, are still required to submit SAT or ACT scores unless they have at least one year of college coursework such as Running Start. The application asks for a detailed account of coursework rather than an up-front transcript. For military enlistment, homeschool graduates qualify as Tier 1 applicants under current Department of Defense policy when they present a diploma and transcript.
Official source
For current statutory text, forms, and procedural updates, the authoritative source is the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Homeschool laws change, so confirm specific requirements directly with the state before relying on them.
Washington homeschool organizations
State agencies publish the rules, but they rarely help you interpret them. For that, Washington homeschool families generally turn to Washington Homeschool Organization (WHO), 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.