If you’re new to homeschooling in New York, you’ve probably already found the IHIP — the Individualized Home Instruction Plan every family has to file. What most first-year guides don’t tell you is that the IHIP is just the first of four fixed checkpoints the state expects from you every single year. Miss the rhythm, and even a strong homeschool program can end up flagged for something that had nothing to do with how your child is actually learning.
This is the calendar view nobody hands you on day one.
Two deadlines before school even starts. By July 1, every New York homeschooling family files a Letter of Intent with their local district — a one-page notice that simply says "we’re homeschooling this year." (You’ll sometimes see this called a "Notice of Intent"; it’s the same document, and Letter of Intent is the term NYSED actually uses.) Then, by August 15, returning families file the IHIP itself — the syllabus-style document mapping out courses, materials, and how you’ll evaluate progress for the year ahead.
Missed July 1? You haven’t missed your chance. This is the question that catches the most first-year families off guard, so it’s worth saying plainly: missing the July 1 deadline does not forfeit your legal right to homeschool in New York. Under 8 NYCRR § 100.10(b)(2), if you decide to start home instruction after the school year has begun — or you’re withdrawing your child from public or private school mid-year — you have 14 days from starting home instruction to submit your Letter of Intent. Districts see LOIs arrive in July, August, and mid-year every cycle; there’s no penalty for a late decision, only for an undocumented one. Once your district receives your LOI, they’re required to respond within 10 business days with a copy of the regulations and an IHIP form (§ 100.10(c)(1)) — and that response date is what starts your clock. You then have 4 weeks from receiving that IHIP form (or until August 15, whichever is later) to submit your completed IHIP — not 4 weeks from the date you sent the LOI (§ 100.10(c)(2)). (One practical note if your child is currently enrolled in school: filing the LOI doesn’t automatically withdraw them. Make sure you formally withdraw or coordinate the transition with the district so your child isn’t marked truant in the gap.) These are general timelines under 8 NYCRR § 100.10 — confirm exact dates and any district-specific forms with your local district.
Four more checkpoints during the year. Once the IHIP is filed, the paperwork doesn’t stop — it just shifts to a quarterly rhythm. Four Quarterly Reports go to the district across the year (roughly mid-November, end of January, mid-April, and end of June), each documenting hours logged, material covered, and progress made. The fourth one arrives with an Annual Assessment attached — a standardized test or state-approved alternative that closes out the year’s compliance loop.
Why the calendar matters more than any single document. Treat the IHIP as a one-and-done form and it’s easy to lose track of what’s actually due next — and NY’s quarterly cadence doesn’t forgive a missed report the way a single annual filing might. Families who stay ahead of this don’t do it by being better at paperwork. They do it by knowing, from day one, that this is a four-checkpoint year, not a one-checkpoint year.
We’ve already published a full deep-dive on the IHIP itself — what goes in each section, how to describe your educational approach, how to handle the required subjects — The NY IHIP Deep Dive: The Framework That Actually Works. If you haven’t filed your IHIP yet, start there. This post is about the bigger picture: the four dates on your calendar, in order, so nothing catches you off guard between now and next August.
To make the first step concrete, we built a fill-in-the-fields planning template that walks through all seven NY-required subjects, the educational-approach section districts actually want to see, and a quarterly report template you can reuse all year: Get the free NY IHIP Planning Template →
This week, we’re walking through the rest of the calendar in detail: the hour-and-day math behind your schedule, what each Quarterly Report actually needs to contain, what "satisfactory progress" means on the Annual Assessment (and what happens if a student falls short of it), and — on Friday — the tradeoff nobody talks about: what NY homeschoolers give up that families in 32 other states don’t have to.
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