Georgia homeschool law for high school: graduation, diploma and records

O.C.G.A. § 20-2-690(a) recognizes public schools, private schools and home study programs as educational entities, and § 20-2-690(c) sets the home study program requirements. Section 20-2-690.1(b) requires each child to attend a public school, a private school or a home study program between the sixth and sixteenth birthdays, and § 20-2-690(e) bars State Board forms and procedures from exceeding the statute's requirements.

O.C.G.A. § 20-2-690; O.C.G.A. § 20-2-690.1(b)

The law as of September 29, 2026.

Georgia at a glance

As of September 29, 2026

Notice to the state: Notice every year
The parent must submit a declaration of intent to utilize a home study program to the Georgia Department of Education within 30 days after establishing the program and by September 1 every year after that, in writing or electronically. It lists the names and ages of the students, the program's address, the local school system and the 12-month period used as the program's school year; the Department sends a copy to the local school system.O.C.G.A. § 20-2-690(c)(1)-(2); GaDOE, Home School Declaration of Intent (text not confirmed)
Records the law asks for: Required
The instructor must write an annual progress assessment report giving an individualized assessment of the student's progress in each required subject and keep it for at least three years; standardized test records and scores must also be retained. Neither is submitted to public officials unless the parent chooses, and the statute sets no attendance log requirement.O.C.G.A. § 20-2-690(c)(7)-(8)
Testing or evaluation: Required
Home study students must take an appropriate nationally standardized test, administered in consultation with a person trained in administering and interpreting norm-referenced tests, at least every three years beginning at the end of grade 3. Results are retained and are not required to be submitted to public educational authorities.O.C.G.A. § 20-2-690(c)(7)
Graduation requirements: None set by the state
Georgia sets no graduation or credit requirements for home study programs. The program must provide a basic academic educational program that includes, but is not limited to, reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies and science.O.C.G.A. § 20-2-690(c)(4)
Diploma: Issued by: parent
No statute provides for a state or district home study diploma; the parent issues it as a matter of practice. Section 20-2-690(c)(6) gives the parent or guardian authority to execute any document required by law, rule, regulation or policy to evidence the child's enrollment, full-time or part-time status, grades or other required educational information.O.C.G.A. § 20-2-690(c)(6)
Compulsory school ages: Between the sixth and sixteenth birthdays, unless the child has completed all requirements for a high school diploma or a state approved HSE diploma. Since May 5, 2026 the statute adds that it is state policy to encourage attendance beginning at age five; this is encouragement, not a requirement.O.C.G.A. § 20-2-690.1(b)

The legal options for homeschooling in Georgia

Home study programParents or guardians may teach their own children at home in a home study program that files an annual declaration of intent, provides 180 days of at least four and one-half hours each, covers the five required subjects, tests at least every three years from the end of grade 3 and keeps annual progress reports. The teaching parent (or any hired tutor) must hold at least a high school diploma or a state approved high school equivalency (HSE) diploma. Basis: statuteO.C.G.A. § 20-2-690(c)
Enrollment in a private school, including one that provides only virtual instructionA child may instead attend a private school meeting § 20-2-690(b), whose administrator reports enrollment to the local superintendent; from July 1, 2026, a nonpublic institution that provides only virtual instruction and meets paragraphs (b)(1), (2) and (4) is deemed a private school even without the 180-day, four-and-one-half-hour schedule. A student of such a school is a private school student, not a home study student. Basis: statuteO.C.G.A. § 20-2-690(b)(3), (5)

What Georgia law means for your transcript

The parent has statutory authority to sign documents evidencing the student's grades and enrollment status (O.C.G.A. § 20-2-690(c)(6)), which covers a parent-issued transcript.
Annual progress reports must be kept at least three years (§ 20-2-690(c)(8)); drawing high school course grades from those reports keeps the transcript consistent with the required records (practice).
For HOPE, a home study graduate's route runs through test scores or college grades rather than a high school GPA (O.C.G.A. § 20-3-519.2(a)(1)), so list SAT or ACT results on the transcript.
No Georgia law defines a home study credit; the 180-day, four-and-one-half-hour year in § 20-2-690(c)(5) is an attendance rule, not a credit rule, and Carnegie units are a convention.

College admission and state aid for Georgia homeschoolers

The HOPE scholarship statute gives a student who completed a home study program meeting § 20-2-690(c) two routes: a retroactive award after earning a 3.0 cumulative GPA at 30 semester (45 quarter) hours at an eligible postsecondary institution, and eligibility listed alongside a score at or above the 75th percentile nationally on the SAT or ACT (§ 20-3-519.2(a)(1)(B)(ii), (C)(ii)). From July 1, 2025, a local school system that offers the PSAT/NMSQT, SAT, PreACT, ACT, ASVAB or an AP exam to its students must make it available to home study students in grades 6 to 12 who live in the system, may not charge them a fee not charged to enrolled students and may not impose requirements beyond § 20-2-690(c).O.C.G.A. § 20-3-519.2(a)(1); O.C.G.A. § 20-2-324.8 (as added by 2025 Ga. Laws Act 360, S.B. 63)

Recent changes to Georgia homeschool law

S.B. 63 (2025 Ga. Laws Act 360), effective July 1, 2025, requires local school systems that offer the PSAT/NMSQT, SAT, PreACT, ACT, ASVAB or AP exams to open them to resident home study students in grades 6 to 12 on equal fee terms (O.C.G.A. § 20-2-324.8). S.B. 123 (2025), effective July 1, 2025, rewrote the compulsory attendance section (§ 20-2-690.1) without changing the 6 to 16 age range, and substituted 'compulsory' for 'mandatory' in § 20-2-690(f)(7). In 2026, H.B. 1193 (effective May 5, 2026) added the age-five encouragement to § 20-2-690.1(b), S.B. 179 (effective July 1, 2026) deemed virtual-only nonpublic institutions private schools under § 20-2-690(b)(3), and H.B. 1268 (effective July 1, 2026) made technical Code revisions; none of these changed the home study requirements in § 20-2-690(c).

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What we could not confirm

These points could not be checked against the statute or regulation text, so treat them with care:

Statute text was read on Justia's 2025 Code of Georgia pages, which show the 2026 amendments; the official LexisNexis code was not opened. Session law numbers and effective dates for the 2025 and 2026 acts come from Justia's history notes, the Georgia Legislative Counsel's 2026 summary of general statutes, and the Westlaw printout of § 20-2-324.8 hosted by HSLDA.
The Westlaw note says a second, different § 20-2-324.8 was added by 2025 Ga. Laws Act 74; the S.B. 63 section may be renumbered by the Code Commission, so confirm the section number before citing it.
Whether the SAT or ACT 75th percentile clause in § 20-3-519.2(a)(1)(C) applies to home study completers (clause (ii)) or only to graduates of ineligible high schools (clause (iii)) is ambiguous on the face of the text; the Georgia Student Finance Commission applies the test-score route to home study students.
HSLDA states that a child under 7 who has attended public school for more than 20 days must continue; we did not find that rule in the current § 20-2-690.1.
The Georgia Department of Education home school pages did not render for automated reading.

Sources

General information about Georgia law as of September 29, 2026, not legal advice. Laws change, so check the statute before you rely on it. Found an error? Email [email protected].