What a Former Principal Actually Looks For in a Homeschool Day

6 min read

Every fall, someone asks me a version of this: “You were a principal. If you walked into my homeschool, what would you be checking?”

I love this question, because the honest answer surprises people. It’s almost nothing on the list they’re afraid of.

What I’m not looking for

I’m not looking for a schedule on the wall. I’m not counting minutes per subject. I’m not looking for a finished worksheet, a grade book, or a curriculum with a brand name on it. I spent years inside a system that measured all of those things, and I watched it measure the wrong things with great precision. A pacing guide can tell you whether page 47 happened on Tuesday. It cannot tell you whether a child learned.

What I’d actually look for

1. Does the child talk? Really talk — ask questions, argue a point, explain something back to me, tell me about a book. A child who talks about her learning is doing it. A child who only answers when prompted is performing it. This was true in every classroom I ever walked into and it’s true at my table.

A bookshelf packed with colorful children's books and baskets

2. Is there a stack of books, and are they beat up? A library basket by the couch with the spines cracked tells me more than a reading log ever did. Reading is the cornerstone. If it’s happening, most of the rest takes care of itself.

3. Is there evidence of a project nobody assigned? A Lego city, a half-built fort, a business plan for a lemonade stand, a fifty-page comic. Self-chosen work is where children reveal what they’re capable of. The best “portfolio” I’ve ever seen was a shoebox of things a nine-year-old made because she wanted to.

4. Does the mother know what her child is working on right now? I mean the child, not the curriculum. “She’s stuck on regrouping and I think it’s because she never got comfortable with place value” is the sentence I’m listening for. That mother is a better assessor than any test.

5. Did they go outside? The outdoors is a rich educational playground, and children who’ve been in it are calmer, more curious, and easier to teach. If the boots by the door are muddy, I already know a lot.

6. Is anyone crying? Some days, someone is. But if crying is the daily pattern, the pace is wrong, and that’s worth more attention than any gap.

Six things I'd actually look for: does the child talk, a stack of beat-up books, a project nobody assigned, does the mother know what her child is working on, did they go outside, is anyone crying

What it looks like at different ages

People ask me to be specific, so here is what those six things look like across a house with a four-year-old and a teenager in it.

The littles. I’m looking for play that lasts. A block tower that took twenty minutes, a story acted out with stuffed animals, a child being read to on somebody’s lap. If a four-year-old is being asked to sit at a table with a worksheet for very long, that’s the thing I’d gently take away. Everything a preschooler needs to learn this year, she can learn on the floor.

The middle years. This is where the project nobody assigned shows up, and it’s the age where I most want to see it. A comic book, a bird list, a business plan for the lemonade stand. I’m also listening for one thing she can explain back to me without looking at a page. One is enough. A child who can teach you something has learned it.

The teenager. I’m no longer looking at the work. I’m looking at whether she owns it. Does she know what’s due, does she ask for help before the night before, can she finish something she doesn’t feel like finishing. A teenager who can manage a week is ready for everything that comes after, and that skill doesn’t show up on any transcript.

A girl running along a wooden boardwalk with her arm raised

If someone is coming to look

Some states send an evaluator. Some ask for a portfolio. If that’s you, and you’re nervous, I want to tell you what I’d bring to that table, because it’s the same list as above.

Bring the beat-up books, or a list of them. Bring a photo of the fort. Bring the shoebox. Bring one page of writing from September and one from May, so the growth is sitting right there in the handwriting. Bring the nature journal, mud and all.

What you don’t need to bring is a spreadsheet of minutes. I sat on the other side of that table for years, and I promise you the evaluator would rather see a child who can talk about a book than a log that proves she sat near one.

And one thing I’d look for in the mother

Nobody asks this one, so I’ll offer it. When I walk into a homeschool, I look at the mom, too. Is she rested enough to be curious about her own kids? Is there evidence she read something for herself this month? Is there a chair that’s hers?

A tired, frightened teacher can’t see the child in front of her. I know, because I was one, in a building full of them. The best thing you can do for your homeschool this year might be a nap and a library book with no educational value whatsoever. Put it on the list. It counts.

The one thing I never did as a principal

I never sat on the floor. There was no time. Now, most mornings, that’s where I am: on the rug, next to my son and whatever he’s building, close enough to hear the questions he only asks when nobody is looking at him.

That’s the assessment. That’s the walk-through. Every principal I know would give a great deal for that seat, and every homeschool mom already has it.

How I’d “assess”

At our house, we do a family check-in a few times a year — every family member at the table, most importantly the student. What’s going well? What’s hard? What do you want to learn next? My kids grade themselves before I say a word, and they are harder on themselves than I would ever be. That reflection is worth ten standardized tests, and it costs us an hour and a plate of cookies.

For the state, we keep what’s required — a portfolio, a simple log, a test if it’s asked for. State standards are a framework, not a checklist. They tell you what a child of that age has typically encountered. They don’t tell you who your child is.

The real answer

If I walked into your homeschool, I’d be looking for one thing: a child who feels safe enough to be curious, and a mother who is watching that child instead of watching the clock.

If that’s what I’d find in your house — and I suspect it is — then you’re doing the job. The rest is paperwork.

The rest is paperwork.

Here’s to muddy boots, cracked spines, and the shoebox of things nobody assigned.

The check-in questions we use are one of the things I’ll be sharing inside the Homebuilt Community when it opens in October — free to join. Waitlist: heymandydavis.com/community.

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