New York homeschool annual assessment.

What the annual assessment requires, by grade

The form of the assessment changes as the student gets older (8 NYCRR §100.10). Three bands:

• Grades 1–3: a written narrative evaluation is acceptable every year. No standardized test is required.
• Grades 4–8: a standardized test is required at least every other year. In the alternate years, a written narrative evaluation is acceptable in its place.
• Grades 9–12: a standardized test is required every year.

Do you write narrative evaluations yourself? A directory of evaluators is seeding: list yourself, free, verified by hand.

Whichever form applies, the annual assessment is submitted together with the fourth quarterly report, not on a separate deadline of its own.

What “adequate academic progress” means

The assessment exists to show one thing: that the student made adequate academic progress over the year. New York defines that two ways, and meeting either is enough (8 NYCRR §100.10):

1. A composite score above the 33rd percentile on national norms on the standardized test; or
2. A composite reflecting one academic year of growth compared with the previous year's test.

The growth alternative matters: a student can sit below the 33rd percentile and still show adequate progress by improving a year's worth between tests. The record is measuring movement, not comparing the child against anyone.

For example, a fifth grader who scored at the 28th percentile last spring and tests again this spring shows adequate progress if the new composite reflects one academic year of growth, even if the percentile stays below the 33rd. A first-year family has no prior test to compare against, so the growth bar is missing that year and the 33rd percentile is the one that applies; in a narrative year there is no score at all, and the narrative itself is the showing.

Choosing a standardized test

Where a test is required, the parent selects an approved, commercially published norm-referenced achievement test. New York publishes acceptable options, and your district can confirm which it accepts locally. Some are administered at a school or testing site; some can be given at home by a qualified person, depending on the test. What the district reads is the composite achievement score against the 33rd-percentile bar, so the choice is about a valid score, not a particular brand.

The written-narrative option

For grades 1–3, and for grades 4–8 in the years a test isn't required, a written narrative evaluation stands in for the test. New York sets who may prepare the narrative and, in some cases, asks for the superintendent's consent (8 NYCRR §100.10); New York City publishes a written-narrative template alongside the testing route. A narrative describes the student's work and progress in each subject: the same honest account a family already builds across four quarterly reports.

What the year-end filing contains

The regulation names who writes the assessment and what it must show; it does not publish a form. Filed together with the fourth quarterly report, the packet has these parts (8 NYCRR §100.10(h)):

• The fourth quarterly report, covering the last part of the year, in the same shape as the first three.
• In a test year: the results of the test the parent selected, read for the composite score and its percentile on national norms.
• In a narrative year: a written narrative evaluation prepared by a New York State certified teacher, a home instruction peer review panel, or another person chosen by the parent with the superintendent's consent, after a review of the student's work and an interview with the student.
• Inside the narrative: one short section per subject on the IHIP reads most easily, giving what was covered, the materials used, and the progress made, the same account the quarterlies already give.

If progress isn't adequate

If neither the 33rd-percentile bar nor a year of growth is met, New York places the home-instruction program on probation and the parent submits a plan of remediation for the district to review (8 NYCRR §100.10(i)). Probation runs for up to two school years; the program comes off it when the child reaches the level the remediation plan specifies, and if the plan's objectives are still not met after two consecutive years the district may begin a noncompliance proceeding. Probation is a corrective step with a plan attached: a path back to good standing, not the end of home instruction. The clearest way to be ready for that conversation is to have the year documented: what the student studied, made, and completed, subject by subject.

That is the same record a family keeps for the quarterly reports and the transcript. You keep one record; the annual assessment, the quarterly reports, and the verifiable transcript are all views of it. Capturing it is free forever, by contract.

Frequently asked questions