Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

Tagged: Schedule, school days

This topic has 15 replies, 14 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 12 months ago by apsews.

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May 6, 2013 at 6:27 pm
Amber
Participant
If you are not required to have a certain number of school days per year at least how many do you “do”? How did you decide on that number?
May 6, 2013 at 6:58 pm
Wings2fly
Participant
180 seems to be standard. I do at least as many as the ps.
May 6, 2013 at 7:40 pm
suzukimom
Participant
Yup, 180 seems pretty standard. Out of curiousity I checked what PS does here… and it seems to vary from about 176-181 (I think depending on when holidays land, and when start of the school year starts….
May 6, 2013 at 7:49 pm
LindseyD
Participant
Texas schedules a 180-day year, and 170 days are required. We do somewhere in between. I believe our Organizer Attendance Report from last year shows we did 165 days. I’m not super legalistic about it because I’m not required to keep records and also because there are so many things we do that are educational but not recorded (life skills, cooking, working in the yard, etc).
May 6, 2013 at 7:51 pm
pangit
Participant
I plan 180 days, but if we finish things up sooner, then we finish sooner.
May 6, 2013 at 7:56 pm
jmac17
Participant
I aim for about 180 as well. I plan our schedule on a page with 5 columns, for 5 days of school. During the summer we might only get 1/2 or 2/3 of a column done, so it can take us 2 actual days to do 1 ‘day’ (column) of work, or 3 actual days to do 2 ‘days’ (columns). I also count a field trip to the zoo or museum as a full ‘day’. I know we should get a bit more than 60 days done for Sept-Dec and another 60+ for Jan-April so that we’ll have less than 60 to finish in the summer. We don’t have to report days, so it’s just to help me keep track of how much we have done, since we school year round and take days off whenever we need/want them.
May 6, 2013 at 8:10 pm
Wings2fly
Participant
Yes. We also count edu. field trips that take up the whole day as a full school day. Why not? The ps does. Many times these fall under history, science, math, language, and/or fine arts (especially children’s museums). And they get plenty of physical exercise.
May 6, 2013 at 8:38 pm
pangit
Participant
This year and next year I actually scheduled by the week instead of by the day. (Don’t know why I forgot that when I posted earlier!! lol) I have scheduled 36 weeks but only plan 4 days a week. I told the girls that if we are getting behind on something, then we’ll have to do 5 days week, at least until we are back on schedule. We have very rarely done the 5th day. So, insteadoof 180 days, that is 144 days. The school district that we just moved away from does 4 days/week. If holiday falls on a Monday, then they will have school that Friday so they still get 4 days in.
May 7, 2013 at 12:18 am
Tanya
Participant
CA requires 175 days for public schools, so that’s what do (although technically homeschooling is considered private school and this doesn’t apply to them). And yes, I too count field trips, but also other activities that we do that I consider beneficial for their growth as human beings.
Having said that, I don’t pay much attention to it. We just do our thing and I just check off dates on the calendar as we go. When we hit the right number of days I turn it in, but if we want to do more stuff, we do it “off the books”. In other words, we do what we need to do for our own family, and by doing that, we end up with plenty of days for the state too.
May 7, 2013 at 5:09 pm
Kristen
Participant
My state requires that we do 875 hours of school and if you divide that by 5 hours per day you come out with 175 days. Now, I don’t always get in 5 hours a day of “school” buy if I count reading, nature, piano, cooking, and days we do extra things like field trips and co-op it works out to at least that much and probably more. However, I am not required to turn anyting in.
May 7, 2013 at 6:10 pm
Tristan
Participant
We’re in Ohio and the requirement is 900 hours. Honestly, we do not keep track because we homeschool year round and even do ‘school’ type learning on weekends. You just can’t keep children from learning when they are passionate about things.
May 7, 2013 at 9:03 pm
amyjane
Participant
Alabama homeschool only requires 160. The schools went up to 180 this year but they are allowed like 15 excused days and some weather days I think so our cover school said that our law didin’t change so we are required to do 160 with no absenses.
May 7, 2013 at 9:08 pm
HollyS
Participant
Our state requires hours not days, but I plan on 180. It comes out to 60 days per term which lines up nicely with the history guides.
May 8, 2013 at 9:01 pm
sarah2106
Participant
We are required “180 days of instruction” but it confuses me becasue public school has 180 days, but with vacation/holiday schedule it comes down to 160 days at school, they have 30 scheduled days off.
May 8, 2013 at 9:11 pm
Christine Kaiser
Participant
Wea re also required 180 days of instruction and we count field trips as school days, too. So guess with 170-180 days you are fine;)