Welcome to the world of homeschooling and home discipleship! We’re here to help and support you and your family. Visit our New to Homeschooling page, which has information on Washington State law, our Parent Qualifying Course, and other helpful links to resources. Also, check out the other questions in this section and on this page, as well as the other pages on our website. Finally, please contact us with any other questions you have. We’d love to hear from you!

Check out our page on Washington State law to learn about what’s legally required to homeschool in Washington! Washington State’s guidelines are pretty straightforward, and we’re glad to answer any questions you may have about these requirements. A parent’s successful completion of our Parent Qualifying Course is one way to meet the parent qualification requirement, so take a look at that course to see if it would be helpful to you. Finally, please contact us with any other questions you have!

This is an important annual form that you need to fill out and file each September (or within the dates prescribed by law)! Check out our page on Washington State law, section C, for more information on filing this form. If you have children who turn eight years old or older prior to the school year beginning or if you begin homeschooling part way through the year and have children who turned eight years of age or older prior to the start of the school year, this form must be completed and filed. If you withdraw your children from public or private school part way through the year, we recommend filing the form at that time and again at the beginning of the new school year.

We highly recommend that you use our form, as it contains only the information you are required by law to give to school district authorities. Please also visit our page with more details about the DOI for helpful tips on filing your form.

The testing and school attendance requirements only apply to students who turn eight before the beginning date of each school year. So a child who turns eight after the beginning date of the school year would not be affected by the DOI and testing law this year.

If you have children who turn eight years old or older prior to the school year beginning or if you begin homeschooling part way through the year and have children who turned eight years of age or older prior to the start of the school year, this form must be completed and filed. If you withdraw your children from public or private school part way through the year, we recommend filing the form at that time and again at the beginning of the new school year.

We highly recommend that you use our form, as it contains only the information you are required by law to give to school district authorities. Please also visit our page with more details about the DOI for helpful tips on filing your form.

For information on satisfying Washington’s homeschooling requirements, please review our pages on Washington State homeschool law and Washington State’s DOI. Also, we would highly recommend that you go through our Start to Finish Seminar or Parent Qualifying Course! This will provide you with a solid groundwork for curriculum and education philosophy for your home education journey.

Additionally, there are many great resources available, including HSLDA, for college preparation, transcript creation, and support in the college application process. We encourage you to prayerfully research and consider what resources would be the best fit for your family. Colleges may differ slightly in their admissions requirements, so please look at each individual college to see how you can be best preparing your students to meet their requirements.

In Washington State, you are still technically homeschooling if your students are enrolled in these programs, even though these may provide materials and/or accountability. Therefore, the parent will still need to meet the Washington State requirements for homeschooling parents. We would highly recommend you complete our Parent Qualifying Course!

Many parents choose to supplement their homeschooling with involvement in activities such as co-ops, support groups, organized sports, music lessons, etc., but it’s up to each family to decide what is the best fit for them. However, we would discourage families from participating in public school programs of any kind.

We recommend trying a simple internet search for “[activity/lesson] [your county/city] Washington” such as “guitar lessons Clark County Washington.” Also, participants in those local organizations, as well as members of your local church, may be aware of even more groups than appear online!

Many parents choose to supplement their homeschooling with involvement in activities such as co-ops, support groups, organized sports, music lessons, etc., but it’s up to each family to decide what is the best fit for them. However, we would caution you about any programs that include government funding and discourage families from participating in public school programs of any kind. We recommend parent-directed education.

There are many wonderful curriculum options today for homeschooling families! If you would be interested in seeing a list of past vendors from our annual Spring Conference, you can download the 2019 Christian Heritage Annual Conference Vendors List here. (These are simply the vendors who applied to and were approved to present at that year’s conference; this list is intended to be a starting point for families in their curriculum search!) We certainly recommend that you find a curriculum with a biblical worldview that also teaches a six-literal-day creation perspective. We encourage you to prayerfully research and consider what programs and styles would be the best fit for your family. Also, our Parent Qualifying Course and Seminar might be helpful to you, as it provides some additional guidance on education philosophy and choosing curriculum. Past recordings may also have information that be useful to you. However, we would discourage families from participating in public school programs of any kind.

We don’t endorse one particular test, but here are some options that you can consider! The main thing you need to ensure is that the test meets the guidelines found in Washington State homeschool law, so if you have questions regarding a specific test, we encourage you to contact the testing organization for more information. Remember that you simply need to keep the test results on file and that you are NOT required to turn them in to your local school district or organization.

The costs for homeschooling can really vary based on the curriculum you choose to use! You can often borrow or purchase used curriculum or find many free resources online to supplement if you desire to do so, or you can purchase a complete curriculum brand-new. If you would be interested in seeing a list of past vendors from our annual Spring Conference, please contact us.

Once you’ve decided on the curricula you’d like to use, shopping for used materials either online or through local curriculum stores or homeschool groups can reduce costs. If you’re looking for more information on the big picture of homeschooling as you consider curriculum, take a look at our Start-to-Finish Seminar and Parent Qualifying Course. However, we would discourage families from participating in public school programs of any kind.

Many families have zero screen time while others utilize screens for several hours a day for their school time. It really depends on the curriculum your family uses. We encourage you to prayerfully research and consider what programs and styles would be the best fit for your family. Check out the question in this section on recommended types of curriculum for resources on this topic.

Washington State does not have any financial assistance available to home educating families. However, Washington State law does provide for a great amount of independence for home educating families, and previous suggestions at the state level for financial assistance for homeschoolers often have been met with greater curriculum restrictions or increased supervisory requirements in exchange.

Our sister organization, CHN (chnow.org), works in Olympia to protect Washington homeschool freedoms, and if you’re interested in more information about their role and past work in this area, please feel free to reach out to CHN.

Do you have questions about a particular event? Please visit our Events page and navigate to the event you’re looking for to find more information about that event. We work to integrate answers to the questions we receive most frequently into our event pages. If you don’t see the answer you need, please don’t hesitate to contact us!

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Maybe! If you’re attending an event that requires you to make a hotel reservation (such as our Marriage Retreat or another event if you’re traveling from a significant distance), please talk with one of our team members to confirm that there’s space. If you’re attending the Day at the Capitol or the Spring Conference, you can register at the door. Feel free, though, to contact our team and let them know that you’re planning to attend. They may still be able to print you a name badge!

We often do! For the Spring Conference, we typically partner with 10-12 local hotels to offer discounts to our conference attendees. We also partnered with a hotel to offer discounted rooms for our Day at the Capitol in 2020. Our Marriage Retreat registration includes the a two-night stay at our venue already! Hotel block information, if offered for an event, can be found under an event’s information page, which you can access through our Events page.

As of 2020, we’ve changed to a new online registration system. This means far less work for our staff and less chance of an error in your registration! As a result, we no longer offer paper applications.

However, if you do not have a way to register online or are uncomfortable doing so, please call us, and we’ll be glad to help you register over the phone. Depending on the event you’re registering for, registration will probably take 10-20 minutes, but you can help by knowing exactly what you’d like to register for. You can pay over the phone using your credit card, or, if you’d like to pay via check, please call us in advance to confirm the exact registration cost. Once we receive your check, we’ll call to complete your registration.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’ll be glad to help, and we want to make your registration as straightforward as possible. We look forward to seeing you at an event soon!

Probably! Please contact our team, and we’ll be glad to see if we can look it up.

Yes, but it can only be transferred to a family that’s attending the conference for the first time. Please contact us with any questions and to let us know that you’d like to transfer the registration!

Yes, thanks to the generosity of CH families, we are glad to be able to offer partial scholarships. Read more about scholarships here!

Please allow up to 1 hour after registering to receive your confirmation email. Our registration system sends the confirmation email to the email you entered in the “billing email” field, so if that was a different email than you’ve checked, try refreshing that inbox. If you still haven’t received a confirmation email with these steps, please contact our team, and we’ll be glad to look up your registration and help you!

Please contact our team, and we’ll be glad to help you update your registration.

We’re sorry to hear that! Unless the event you registered for has an event-specific refund policy, our general refund policy applies, as agreed to when you registered. Please review our policy and instructions here. Feel free to contact us with any questions!

Go to our Homeschool Start-to-Finish Seminar and Parent Qualifying Course page and click the “Register NOW” button to sign up and purchase the course.

The two options include the same content, but the Parent Qualifying Course option includes homework and a certificate and will meet the Washington State law requirements if successfully completed.

If you’re just looking for edification and encouragement in your homeschool journey, and you already meet the Washington State law requirements, our Start-to-Finish seminar option is a great fit! With the seminar, you’ll have access to all of the videos and handouts, but you won’t have any homework to complete and won’t receive a certificate of completion.

Go to our Homeschool Start-to-Finish Seminar and Parent Qualifying Course page to read more about what the seminar and course each include!

Yes, the course satisfies the requirements for preparing a parent to homeschool. We encourage you to review Washington State law to make sure you are in compliance with all Washington state requirements.

The course is self-paced, so you can register for the course whenever you’d like to! However, the course does need to be completed within eight weeks of the student’s registration date.

It’s a combination of video lessons, handouts to read, and assignments to complete and submit via email. It’s completely online and self-paced, although students have eight weeks from the date of their registration to complete the course.

Yes! Once you complete the registration form, check the email that you listed on your registration form for the link to your course materials. Follow the directions in the email and on the course page, and you’ll be ready to start! If you have any trouble registering or accessing your course materials, please contact us.

No, our Parent Qualifying Course is offered exclusively online.

Students typically receive their certificates two to three weeks after our team receives the completed assignments. If you’ve submitted your coursework more than three weeks ago but haven’t yet received your certificate, please contact us and let us know!

Yes, thanks to the generosity of CH families, we are glad to be able to offer scholarships for the PQC. Read more about scholarships here!

That’s absolutely not a problem. Contact our helpful team!

At this time, no, we don’t. However, our friends at the National Center for Family Integrated Churches (NCFIC) have a list of churches in their network that can be a helpful place to start. We encourage you to prayerfully seek out a Bible-believing church to worship with as a family!

At this time, no, we don’t. It’s a difficult task to stay up-to-date with all of the different groups across the state, and it’s beyond the scope of our team right now! We recommend trying a simple internet search for “homeschool group [your county/city] Washington.” Also, participants in those local organizations, as well as members of your local church, may be aware of even more groups than appear online! Please research and prayerfully consider what will be a good fit for your family.

We would also invite you to check out our Events page. Our annual Spring Conference is a wonderful place to meet like-minded families from around the state and beyond!

We have lots of opportunities to volunteer here at CH! If you’re interested in joining us, please read about opportunities and fill out our volunteer form! You can also contact your local homeschool support group to see what needs they or the families participating have.

No, as a 501(c)3 organization, Christian Heritage does not endorse candidates or work on legislative issues. However, our sister organization, CHN (chnow.org), works in Olympia to protect Washington homeschool freedoms, and if you’re interested in more information about their role and the work they do, please feel free to reach out to CHN!

For the Spring Conference, all of the workshops are audio-only, the keynote sessions are recorded with both video and audio, and the special music pieces and family night concert are only video recorded. The Marriage Retreat sessions are audio-only, as well. Please double-check your purchase to make sure you’re purchasing the format you’d like! You can view our recordings library here.

Feel free to contact us with any questions!

Yes! You’ll be able to log back in to your dashboard and download the audio recordings you’ve purchased forever.

The audio recordings are in MP3 file format, and the video recordings are on a DVD that we will ship to you.

Unfortunately, no, we typically don’t have those available. However, some speakers do choose to make those available through their ministries. We would encourage you to contact the speaker and ask. They may be able to send them to you!

We mail out tax-deductible donation receipts early in the year. If you haven’t yet received yours in time to file your taxes, or you’d just like a copy, please contact our helpful team!

Please contact us, and we’ll be glad to help you.

Is something on our website not working? Contact our helpful team! It’s most helpful to us if you can tell us about the issue, like what an error said or what happened when you tried to find what you were looking for. Also, if possible, try using a different card to see if that resolves the issue.

Please call us, and we’ll be glad to help you donate over the phone using your credit card. You can also donate via check. Please send the check to our mailing address, adding “Attn: Treasurer.”

Yes, but it can only be transferred to a family that’s attending the conference for the first time. Please contact us with any questions and to let us know that you’d like to transfer the registration!

Is something on our website not working, or you just can’t figure it out? Contact our helpful team!

If you’d like to update your contact information, please contact our helpful team!

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If you can’t find an email or if you’d like to no longer receive CH mail, just reach out to our team, and we’ll be glad to help you.

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