Obligations
You can start homeschooling whenever you want. You have the right to withdraw your child from school at any time during the school year. You do not have to wait for permission to do it.
Becoming a parent-educator is an important decision, but you don’t have to do it alone! AQED can help you every step of the way.
Overview
| STEP | Deadline | REcipient |
|---|---|---|
| Written Notice | July 1st or Within 10 days of the decision to withdraw, if after July 1st. |
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| Learning Project | September 30 or 30 days after the date of withdrawal from school |
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Between the 3rd and 5th month after the implementation of your Learning Plan Unless :
|
| |
| Monitoring Meeting | At some point during the year (the DEM will contact you to schedule). |
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| Completion Report | June 15th |
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| Evaluation | Portfolio submitted to the Minister: June 15th By a private school : July 10th By the holder of a teaching license : July 10th SSC or SB : July 10th Mandatory Ministry Exams held in 4th grade (French sector only), 6th grade and Secondary 2: July 10th Ministry Exams given in Secondary 4 and 5: July 15th | Demonstration of the evaluation method(s) used for each mandatory subject in the learning project must be sent to DEM. For mandatory exams, it isn’t necessary to send grades. They can be hidden. |
Homeschooling a child in high school? Check out Homeschooling in High School
AQED has a bunch of templates and examples to help its members meet all of their legal obligations!
Monitoring by the Ministry
The Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement Supérieur (MEES) is responsible monitoring homeschoolers through the Direction de l’enseignement à la maison (DEM). This monitoring includes:
- Receiving and examining the required documentation.
- Ensuring that all requirements regarding the implementation of the learning plan as well as the evaluation of the child’s progression are met.
- Supporting families by giving assistance to parents that require it.
- Advising parents, especially in regards to activities, educational resources and ministerial programs.
You will find contact details for the DEM, access to a secured space to upload your documents, and more information, including FAQs, on MEES’s website.
General Recommendations
Requests for More Information
The regulation states that the DEM can ask you for more information if it determines that one of your documents is incomplete. The request will be made in writing. You will have 30 days to submit a new document.
Usually, your DEM resource person will call you to inform you of the missing information and will suggest some solutions. You may base your correction on these recommendations or propose other solutions. Some resource persons will give a shorter delay to answer a question or for a gap in the learning project (or any other document). Sometimes only a couple of days are given. Know that this delay is in addition to the 30 official days. Resource persons are giving you these days before sending an official notice of non-compliance.
You can try to make these changes before receiving the notice or you can take your time to inform yourself about your needs and rights, wait until you receive the notice and then have 30 days to comply.
AQED members can contact us for support when making corrections to their documents.
Documents and Written Communications
Write short documents and use simple language.
Keep a written copy of your communications.
You can seek inspiration from our examples and templates to write your documents.
Language of Communication With the DEM
Communication with the DEM is not subject to Bill 101. You may communicate with them in the language of your choice (subject to the availability of staff who speak the language).
Child’s Progress
We encourage families to report overall progress, across their learning as a whole as compared to the previous year.
The regulation states that it is the parents’ responsibility to provide: “a content to achieve the objectives included in the program of each subject must be taught to allow progress in learning equivalent to that applicable per cycle at school”.
You may thus respect the rhythm and needs of your child based on the grade level corresponding to their abilities, not their age.
Submitting Documentation
Your time is precious and should be devoted to your children’s learning. AQED believes that the documentation you send to DEM should be limited to the minimum required to fulfill your legal obligations. Minimal documentation does not equate to minimal education, and studies show that increased government control does not equate to greater success for children either.
Drafting long and complex documents can set precedents and create additional expectations on the part of the DEM. We’re thinking here of large families, those with special needs children and those adopting educational approaches for whom it’s less easy to document their daily lives. Let’s be supportive of each other and keep in mind that it’s in the children’s best interests that your time not be taken up by administrative tasks designed solely to reassure the DEM that there has been no educational negligence.
Legal framework
Amendments to the Education Act and the adoption of a first Homeschooling Regulation in 2018 necessitated adjustments on the part of Quebec’s family-educators. A second regulation the following year once again brought its share of adjustments.
AQED offers guidelines to help you meet the current requirements, which are based on our interpretation of the regulation. These guidelines are mostly accepted by the Direction de l’enseignement à la maison (DEM), but may vary according to the expectations of your resource person (RP). You can also consult the Guide d’accompagnement en enseignement à la maison published by the DEM.
As with any other legal document, the application of the Homeschooling Regulation changes over time, depending on how it is experienced and interpreted by the population. It is therefore important to expose the DEM to the wide diversity of families’ educational approaches, in order to influence the evolution of best practices in home education and its supervision in a positive way.
AQED’s Website and Documents
Our position was partly influenced by conversations at the Table de concertation nationale en matière d’enseignement à la maison (suspended since 2018), of which AQED is a member . We also consulted other associations and community centers that support family-educators in Quebec, as well as home-education experts . We studied what is being done in other jurisdictions. We spoke on several occasions with various lawyers, including those from Société d’avocats Morency, experts in education law, who gave us their legal opinion.
Our members and volunteers helped draft the website content.
The legal framework overseeing home education in Quebec has been constantly evolving since the Education Act was amended in 2017. As no legal body has been called upon to take a position to date, there are different interpretations of this law and the Quebec Homeschooling Regulation depending on the entity or person.