Homeschooling in New Jersey
What New Jersey actually asks of a family teaching their own children. Written plainly, and honest where the answer is that nobody asks for anything.
United StatesNo filing requiredWho is in charge
None
Who actually reviews your child
No one. Under State v. Massa (1967) the burden is on the state to prove instruction is not equivalent.
What you must file
Nothing. There is no registration, no notice and no annual return to submit in New Jersey. That freedom is real, and it carries a quiet catch: because nobody ever required a record, there is no file to reach for the day someone finally asks what your child has learned.
The part the paperwork does not cover
Filing on time is the easy half. The harder half is the year in between: showing what your child actually learned, in words the reviewer recognises, without turning your home into a school.
That is what this tool is for. You say what your child did, in a sentence. It maps that to the published standards we hold for New Jersey, which today are Mathematics (487 of 496) and Science (525 of 535). Those figures count the topics we carry for ages 5 to 12 that cite one of New Jersey's published standards. We do not hold New Jersey's own standards for English and Social Studies yet, and they are being added. Physical Education is not in the app for New Jersey yet. A moment in any of those subjects is kept on the general map for your child's age and named that way in the record, so the record never cites New Jersey's curriculum where we hold none of it. Then it builds the record you can hand over the day someone asks. See how it works.
Other places in United States
Sources last checked on 2026-08-11: nj.gov. That is the date we checked, not the date the rule last changed.
The law itself: N.J.S.A. 18A:38-25; State v. Massa, 95 N.J. Super. 382 (1967). We hold no direct link to the authority's page for this jurisdiction.