Connecticut is a great state to homeschool in. The regulations are limited and even at that the CT Guidelines are strictly speaking, voluntary. If you choose to ignore the Guidelines and seek to follow the CGS 10-184 law itself (which is vague) you may find yourself in a more complicated struggle with your town's Board of Education or Superintendent or instead they may choose to ignore you. In my opinion, the Guidelines are a good compromise of freedom and oversight and if carefully followed can avoid most troubles. We followed them during our homeschooling years.
NEW
There is a legal group here in CT that has supported homeschoolers since 1989. Attorney Deborah Stevenson founded and has led CT's C.U.R.E. (Citizen's to Uphold the Right to Educate) which has worked diligently to protect homeschooling rights from intrusions from schools and the Legislature. This group has recently evolved into National Home Education Legal Defense (NHELD) which supports homeschoolers' right to educate their children and also provides prepaid legal services towards that end.
Connecticut Regulations
In 1990 the state prepared the Guidelines that now generally govern the oversight of homeschools. There was a very minor update to these guidelines in 1994. In addition CT General Statute 10-184 which affects homeschoolers was updated in 1994.
The age of compulsory schooling was lowered to age 5 (parents may opt out until age 7, however) in 1998. In 2000 the Legislature raised the mandatory attendance age to 18, but again added an opt out provision that is available at age 16, as before.
C.U.R.E. has passed along some information that CT laws (CGS 10-249, 250, and 251) do require towns to report to the state the number of students in their jurisdiction. Some towns may, in the absence of your filing of the Notice of Intent form, ask you to provide them with a simple statement of the schooling status of your children. It appears that they are within their rights to ask this, but in turn your reply may be simply that you are homeschooling them under the terms of CGS 10-184.
All of these items are addressed in more detail on the Guidelines page.
There are other discussions of CT's homeschooling legal environment which I can recommend to you. They are not all the same, but are worth reviewing to get the different points of view. TEACH, the Christian support group has a discussion on their web site. CHN, the Connecticut Homeschool Network has a number of items linked off of their home page under the Law and Policy item. The Legal FAQ is only one of the items there. Finally NHELD, not surprisingly, has a lot of information available. In any case being a homeschooler means being a well informed homeschooler, so check these out.
In Brief
In simple terms you fill in a Notice of Intent Form (submitted to the local school department) which just commits you to teach the required subjects, however you please, using whatever curriculum you desire. You are required to do a portfolio review in the spring to demonstrate that you have been teaching. That's all. The practice of this system has been pretty fair as well.
While some towns have made extra requests in connection with the portfolio review, these are not necessary and need not be honored. Also some towns may use a non-standard Notice on Intent form. In doing this they oppose the state's chosen procedures and may make trouble for themselves if you raise this nonstandard practice with the state Department of Education. It has been suggested that in this case you just fill in the standard state form as posted on this site and return that to the town instead.
Revised August 9, 2004