Colorado hands homeschooling families a decision no other state in this series offers, and buries it in the middle of a sentence. The notice you are about to write does not have to go to your school district. It goes to a district, and you are the one who picks which.
Here is the sentence, from the home-based education statute:
written notification of the establishment of said program to a school district within the state fourteen days prior to the establishment of said program and each year thereafter
Colorado Revised Statutes § 22-33-104.5(3)(e)
Two things live in that sentence, and each deserves its own reading. Take the quieter one first.
A school district. Not your school district.
Any Colorado district can receive your notice of intent. The statute says “a school district within the state,” and it means what it says: the family chooses the district it files with, wherever in Colorado the family happens to live. District websites naturally describe the process as filing with them, which is how most families come away believing the choice does not exist.
It matters more than it first appears, because the district that receives your notice is also the district that receives what comes later:
shall be evaluated when such child reaches grades three, five, seven, nine, and eleven
Colorado Revised Statutes § 22-33-104.5(3)(f)
Those periodic test or evaluation results are submitted to the district that took your notification. So the choice you make in week one decides who you will be corresponding with in third, fifth, seventh, ninth and eleventh grade. A family that has had a bruising year with its own district office is allowed to hand that relationship to a different one, and some Colorado districts have built genuinely welcoming home-education offices precisely because families can choose them.
Fourteen days, counted toward the start
Now the louder half of the sentence. The notice must land fourteen days before the home program begins, and the clock runs toward the program’s first day rather than the child’s last one at school. That is the mirror image of the states that make you wait to leave: Colorado does not mind when the child leaves the building, it minds when the home schooling starts.
Calendar days, too. Weekends, holidays and in-service days all count, so a family that mails the notice on the first of the month is clear to begin on the fifteenth. Decide your start date first, count fourteen days back, and that is your filing deadline.
What the notice has to carry
Very little, and nothing that invites negotiation. The statute asks for the basics and nobody has to approve anything:
- The child’s name and age
For each child the program will teach. - Place of residence
Where the family lives. Filing with a distant district does not change where you live, and the notice says so plainly. - Hours of attendance
The statute’s own baseline is one hundred seventy-two days a year, averaging four instructional contact hours a day. State the hours; nobody signs off on them. - A signature and a date
The date starts the fourteen-day count, so keep the dated copy. - Nothing about curriculum
No syllabus, no book list, no approval step. The notice is a notification, not an application, and there is no one in the process whose job is to say yes.
File it again each year the program continues. The current form and the state’s own answers sit on the Colorado Department of Education’s home-school page, and section 22-33-104.5 itself is short enough to read whole.
Where Colorado sits in the series
Four states, four completely different answers to the same two questions.
| State | Who gets the notice? | What does the clock attach to? |
|---|---|---|
| New Jersey | Nobody; no filing exists | Nothing |
| Kentucky | The school usually notifies, not you | Nothing |
| Arkansas | Your district’s superintendent | Leaving: five school days before the last day |
| Colorado | Any district in the state, your choice | Starting: fourteen days before the program begins |
Colorado is the only row where the family decides who sits on the other side of the table. It is also the only one whose deadline points at the new school rather than the old one, which is why a guide written for another state will have a Colorado family counting the wrong days toward the wrong office.
Working out your start date and your district?
Fifteen minutes on the phone settles the fourteen-day count, what the transcript needs to say, and what the choice of district means for the evaluation years. No records required to have the conversation, and deciding against it costs nothing.
Doing it in order
Pick the program’s first day, then count fourteen calendar days back
That is your filing deadline. The count runs to the day home schooling begins, not the day your child last walks out of the building.
Choose the district you will file with
Your own is allowed and usually simplest. But the district that takes the notice is the district that receives the evaluation results at grades three, five, seven, nine and eleven, so choose the office you want that long correspondence with.
Send the notice, and re-send it each year
Name, age, place of residence, hours of attendance, dated and signed. The state form on the CDE page removes any argument about whether the notice counted.
Ask the current school for the records before the last day
This request goes to the school your child attends now, whichever district you chose for the notice. Records move most easily while a student is still on the roll: ask for the full transcript and for course descriptions covering anything half finished, and get the reply by email.
Keep the dated copies together
The notice starts a fourteen-day count and repeats every year, and the evaluation years arrive on a schedule. One folder, kept where you can find it, carries the whole relationship.
The notice letter, ready to send
Use the state’s form where you can; where a covering letter helps, short is correct. This one goes to the district you chose. The records request in step four is a separate note to your child’s current school.
To the office of [school district],
This letter provides written notification under C.R.S. § 22-33-104.5(3)(e) of the establishment of a nonpublic home-based educational program for [student full name], age [age], residing at [place of residence]. The program will provide no fewer than one hundred seventy-two days of instruction, averaging four instructional contact hours per day, beginning on [start date], which is at least fourteen days after the date of this notice.
Please confirm receipt of this notification to [address / email].
Thank you,
[Your name]
[Address]
[Telephone]
What we can and cannot tell you
High School of America is an accredited private school based in Florida, not a Colorado one. Colorado’s law contains more than one lawful route, including enrollment in an independent or parochial school, and which route fits your household is a legal question about your family that we are not the right people to answer. What we can do is tell you what the statute says about the notice, the count and the choice of district, which is above, with the text linked so you can read the sentences yourself.
If you want a person to talk it through with, that is what the counselor call is for, and it is not a sales appointment. Bring whatever records you have, or none.
The wider picture sits on the requirements state by state, and if you are early enough to still be deciding, the three-route comparison weighs this against staying exactly where you are.