Portfolio + evaluations

Two duties are yours by law and two are your authority's. What to keep, how the evaluations work, and how to walk in ready. About 6 minutes.

Who owes what

Most guides describe this page's subject as "the facilitator visit", which quietly puts the whole thing on your authority. The Regulation splits it, and the half nobody mentions is yours.

Yours, under section 4(1) — and this applies whether you are supervised or not:

1. Evaluate your child's progress at regular intervals, and keep a record of the methods and dates of those evaluations.
2. Keep dated samples of student work and a general record of your child's activities.

Your authority's, under section 4(2) — supervised programs only:

• Arrange for teachers it employs to conduct at least two evaluations of your child's progress each school year
• Advise you of your child's progress
• Make recommendations on anything that may help your child reach a higher level of achievement, where necessary
• Ensure your child has the opportunity to write provincial assessments
• Keep student records, and tell you that you may view them

Alberta's guidance goes further than the Regulation's own wording: alberta.ca describes those as formal evaluations by certificated teachers that include a review of the student portfolio. Useful to know, and worth reading as the practice rather than the letter — neither "certificated" nor "portfolio" appears anywhere in the Regulation.

The two duties that are yours, in plain terms

The word "portfolio" makes parents imagine a curated album. What the Regulation asks for is narrower and duller: dated samples, plus a note of when and how you checked progress.

Alberta's own parent quick-reference asks the question directly —

"Must I keep all of my child's work as proof of their learning?" "No, only dated samples."

— and gives that same answer for supervised and unsupervised families alike.

So the practical bar is: enough dated work to show growth over the year, and a running note of your own check-ins. Not everything. Not beautiful.

Why "dated" is the load-bearing word. It is the word the Regulation uses, and it is what turns a pile of work into evidence of progress over time. A folder of undated worksheets shows that work happened; it does not show that your child moved. Photograph or scan as you go and the date comes free.

Where these records actually get used. Your authority may ask you to provide them when it conducts its evaluations. And if you are unsupervised, you may be required to submit them to the Ministry should there be an investigation — the Director can look into an unsupervised program and, if not satisfied, end it on at least 14 days' written notice. That is the sharp end of a duty most first-year guides don't mention at all.

What counts

Anything organized that shows what your child covered and how they progressed:

• Samples of writing, math work, art and projects — dated
• Photos of completed activities, builds and experiments
• Reading logs
• Field-trip records — museums, parks, science centres
• Your own notes on a conversation where the understanding was obvious
• Dated quiz or post-test results
• Exports from digital learning tools. For science, Eduverse assembles this as your child works — see the Learning Record. It lists your province's whole science curriculum for the grade, including the outcomes we have no lesson for, so what you're looking at is the real shape of the year rather than only the parts we cover.

The two evaluations, and the part that is in your favour

The Regulation's floor is at least two evaluations of your child's progress each school year, conducted by teachers your authority employs. Beyond that, two things about how they happen are provincial, and both favour you:

Under s4(1)(c)–(d), the evaluation happens at a time and place mutually agreeable to you and your authority — and your child is made available "in the presence of the parent, if the parent chooses to be present."

A facilitator cannot simply assign you a slot at their office and expect you to take it, and you do not have to leave the room. If that has been presented to you as fixed, it isn't.

What genuinely is your authority's practice, and varies: the fall/spring rhythm (common, not a rule), how long the meetings run, whether they happen at your table or over video, and how much contact you get in between. Those are worth asking about before you choose an authority — they are one of the six levers on Choose a supervising authority.

What is actually being judged

Not the Programs of Study, unless you chose them. The Regulation defines an evaluation as a judgment based on the activities you selected for the year, and Alberta puts it plainly: the authority must ensure each student meets the parents' educational outcomes.

That is the whole reason "am I behind?" is a different question for a home-educating family. You set the outcomes; the evaluation asks whether your child is progressing against those.

The counterpart is worth knowing too: an authority can end a supervised program if it decides your child is not making reasonable progress — but only in consultation with you, and giving due consideration to your child's age, grade level and abilities. It is a conversation with a floor under it, not a verdict.

How to walk in ready

1. Ask, in your first email: "What specifically do you want to see at each evaluation?" Authorities and individual facilitators differ. Ten minutes of that answer saves hours of assembling the wrong thing.
2. Bring the dated samples you already have, not a special project made for the occasion. The evaluation is about your child's year, and a curated exhibit tells the teacher less than ordinary work in sequence.
3. Bring your own record of check-ins — the methods and dates. This is the half most families forget, and producing it unprompted changes the tone of the meeting.
4. Have your questions ready. Recommendations are something your authority owes you where they'd help; an evaluation is the natural moment to ask for them.
5. Stay in the room if you want to. That is your call, not theirs.

Your action list

• Start a dated folder today — physical or a phone album, it does not matter. Date everything as it goes in.
• Open a running note for your own evaluations: what you checked, how, and when. Three lines a month is a record.
• Diarise a check-in at a rhythm you'll actually keep. "Regular intervals" is not defined; monthly is defensible and easy to sustain.
• Ask your facilitator the question in step 1 if you haven't yet.

✅ Your next step → Back to your homeschool map

Or jump to a related tool:

• Open your Learning Record →
• Open your Memory Book →

Sources: Home Education Regulation AR 89/2019 (consolidated to AR 160/2025) — s1(c) for what an evaluation is judged against, s4(1)(a)–(b) for the parent's own duty to evaluate at regular intervals and keep dated samples of student work, s4(1)(c)–(d) for the mutually-agreeable time and place and your right to be present, s4(2)(a)–(e) for the authority's duties including the at-least-two evaluations and the recommendations, s5(e) for student records, s1.2 for the Director's investigation and termination powers over an unsupervised program, and s8(1)(a) with s8(3) for termination on reasonable-progress grounds and the consultation it requires. Home Education Handbook (April 2025) for the parent quick-reference answer "No, only dated samples" and for the records an authority or the Ministry may ask to see. Home education — Alberta.ca for "the parents' educational outcomes" and for the description of the evaluations as formal evaluations by certificated teachers including a review of the student portfolio — that description is Alberta's guidance, not language in the Regulation. "Facilitator" is board usage; it does not appear in the Regulation. Checked 29 July 2026; re-checked at the start of each school year. Nothing here is legal advice.