Maryland asks a question no other state in this series asks. Not whether you may homeschool, and not what you must file: it asks who you would like your reviewer to be. The notification form itself carries the choice, and Maryland families have a household word for one of the answers. They call it the umbrella.
The law sits in two places: the compulsory attendance statute, Education Article 7-301, and the home instruction chapter of the state regulations, COMAR 13A.10.01. The regulation sets one standard for every home instruction program, and it is worth reading in the state’s own words. The parent or guardian shall provide
regular, thorough instruction in the studies usually taught in the public schools to children of the same age
COMAR 13A.10.01.01
including instruction in English, mathematics, science, social studies, art, music, health, and physical education. That single sentence is the whole of what Maryland requires the education itself to be. Everything else in the chapter is about who checks, and that is where the choice comes in.
Route one is the portfolio. The family keeps a portfolio of materials demonstrating that instruction, and the local school system may look at it. The regulation fences the looking on both sides: each review happens
at a time and place mutually agreeable to the representative of the local school system and the parent or guardian
COMAR 13A.10.01.01
and the count is capped outright:
There are not more than three reviews during a school year.
COMAR 13A.10.01.01
Route two is the umbrella. Instead of the school system, the family places the program under a supervising entity: a nonpublic school holding a Certificate of Approval from the state education department, or an education ministry of a bona fide church organization. The umbrella supervises the instruction on the school system’s behalf, on the umbrella’s own terms, and the district’s reviewer never enters into it. Either way, the arrangement starts the same way: the Home Instruction Notification Form goes to the local school system at least 15 days before the program begins, and the form is where the choice of reviewer is recorded.
The review is an appointment, not an inspection
Maryland schedules its check by mutual agreement. The district still needs the letter.
Notice what the regulation does not permit: a drop-in. The review of a portfolio happens at a time and place both sides agree to, at most three times a year, for the stated purpose of confirming regular, thorough instruction. But none of that machinery closes the enrollment your child holds today. A student who stops appearing at a Maryland public school without a withdrawal letter is not a home instruction student in the district’s records, they are an enrolled child collecting unexcused absences. The letter closes the old roll; the notification form opens the new arrangement; they are two documents, and the fifteen-day clock on the second is a reason to send both early.
The regulation runs four short sections at COMAR 13A.10.01.01, and the state education department publishes the same text with the notification form attached.
What leaving actually requires
- A choice of reviewer, made on the form
The local school system’s portfolio review, or a supervising umbrella. The notification form records which one; nothing stops a family from changing the arrangement later by updating it. - The Home Instruction Notification Form, 15 days ahead
Filed with the local school system at least 15 days before home instruction begins. File it early enough that the fifteen days expire before the planned first day. - A withdrawal letter that closes the roll
Delivered so receipt can be shown, with the last day of attendance. The form tells the county what is starting; the letter tells the school what is ending. - Instruction that covers the listed studies
English, mathematics, science, social studies, art, music, health, and physical education, regularly and thoroughly, through the school year. A structured program covers the list by construction; a home-built plan should be able to point at each subject. - A portfolio worth opening
Materials that show the instruction happening: work samples, the materials in use, evidence of progress. Under an umbrella the entity sets its own terms; under the school system this is what the mutually agreed appointment looks at, at most three times a year.
Where Maryland sits in the series
Line the states up by a single question, who looks over the year, and Maryland is the only one that returns the question to the family.
| State | Who looks over the year | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Indiana | The parent’s own attendance record | Kept daily, shown only on request |
| Iowa | The superintendent, only if he asks in writing | Possibly never |
| Kansas | Nobody, once the school’s name is registered | Never again |
| Louisiana | The state, reading the renewal’s past tense | Once a year, on paper |
| Maryland | A reviewer the family chooses: school system or umbrella | Three appointments a year at most, by mutual agreement |
A guide that files Maryland under “portfolio state” has read half the chapter. The portfolio is one of two answers to the question the form asks, and thousands of Maryland families give the other answer every year.
Choosing a reviewer this month?
Fifteen minutes on the phone covers the withdrawal letter, the notification form’s fifteen-day clock, and how a structured program’s curriculum, teachers and records give a portfolio its spine whichever supervisor you name. No records required to have the conversation, and deciding against it costs nothing.
Doing it in order
Decide who reviews
School system portfolio, or an umbrella. The choice shapes nothing about the teaching and everything about who you answer to; it goes on the notification form, and it can be revisited later.
File the notification form, then count 15 days
It goes to the local school system at least 15 days before instruction begins. Set the first day of the new program on the far side of that clock.
Pick the last day and the first day
The last day at the public school and the first day of home instruction, ideally adjacent, so the student is never marked absent and never off every roll at once.
Send the withdrawal letter so receipt can be shown
Email the principal and the registrar together; the reply is your proof. Name the effective date, and ask in the same letter for the full transcript, immunization records, and course descriptions for anything half finished.
Start the portfolio on day one
Whichever reviewer you chose, keep the materials as you go: what was taught, from what, with samples. A portfolio assembled in the week before an appointment reads like one; a portfolio kept daily reads like the instruction it records.
The withdrawal letter, ready to send
Short is correct. This goes to the school your child attends now, addressed to the principal and copied to the registrar.
Dear Principal [name],
This letter is formal notice that our child, [student full name], date of birth [DOB], currently in grade [grade], is withdrawn from [school] effective [last day of attendance]. Beginning [start date], [he/she/they] will receive home instruction under Maryland law, COMAR 13A.10.01, and the Home Instruction Notification Form has been filed with [county] Public Schools.
Please update your enrollment records accordingly and confirm receipt of this letter by reply. Please also send a complete transcript, immunization records, and course descriptions for any course in progress to [address / email].
Thank you for your help.
[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 Maryland school and not a Maryland supervising entity. Which reviewer suits your household, and what any particular umbrella asks of its members, are judgments this page has no business making. What the page has done is quote the regulation’s standard and its subject list verbatim, mark the review as the capped, mutually scheduled appointment the text makes it, put the fifteen-day clock where you can see it, and link the regulation and the state’s own publication of it so you are reading the sources rather than a summary of them.
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.