Homeschool Requirements in South Carolina

South Carolina asks more of a family than most places do. There is more of it here than in most places, and the deadlines hold. That is a discouraging thing to read in the week you have decided to teach your children yourself, and it should not put you off. None of it is beyond an ordinary household once it is written down in one place, which is what this page is for. Read the dates first. The rest can wait until they are on the calendar.

What you send in, and when it is due

Choose one of three options and enroll before instruction begins. Option 1 (S.C. Code § 59-65-40): apply to the local school district board of trustees, which must approve programs meeting the statutory standards. The statute sets no annual cycle, though most districts run it as an annual application; a district must give 30 days to correct deficiencies before it may withdraw approval. Option 2 (§ 59-65-45): join the South Carolina Association of Independent Home Schools. Bona fide membership and continuing compliance with SCAIHS academic standards exempts the home school from the further requirements of § 59-65-40. Option 3 (§ 59-65-47): join any home school association with no fewer than fifty members. Under Options 2 and 3 the association reports the number and grade level of its home schooled children to their respective school districts by January 30 each year, and the State Department of Education reviews association standards annually. The association does not certify each family’s compliance to the district. Options 2 and 3 are by far the most used because they avoid district approval and district oversight. All three carry a parent qualification: under Options 2 and 3 a parent must hold at least a high school diploma or a GED certificate. Option 1 is stricter on its face, requiring a diploma or GED plus a passing score on the basic skills examination developed under § 59-26-20(b)(1) once the State Department of Education has validated that test for use with home schooling parents, or in the alternative a baccalaureate degree.

Days and hours

All three options require an instructional year of at least 180 days. Only Option 1 sets a daily minimum: § 59-65-40(2) requires an instructional day of at least four and one-half hours, excluding lunch and recesses. Neither § 59-65-45 nor § 59-65-47 contains an hours-per-day figure, though an association may set one of its own.

Subjects the law names

Reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies; plus composition and literature in grades 7 through 12.

What you keep

Option 1: a plan book, diary, or other written record showing subjects taught and activities engaged in; a portfolio of samples of the child’s academic work; and a record of evaluations of academic progress. A semiannual progress report including attendance records and individualized documentation of academic progress in each basic instructional area must be submitted to the school district. Option 3: § 59-65-47(d) puts the same three categories of records on the parent-teacher, held for the association rather than filed with the district. Option 2: the statute sets no recordkeeping requirement at all, so SCAIHS sets its own.

Testing and evaluation

Option 1 students must participate in the annual statewide testing program and the Basic Skills Assessment Program approved by the State Board for their grade level. The tests must be administered by a certified school district employee, either with public school students or by special arrangement at the student’s place of instruction at the parent’s option, and the parent pays the administrator if the test is given at home. Two Option 1 details that catch families out: a child eligible for first grade must be tested for first grade readiness within the first fifteen instructional days of the public school year (§ 59-65-40(C)), and if a student scores below the district’s promotion standard for one year the board decides whether the student receives instructional placement in the public school, special services, or home schooling with an instructional support system at parental expense (§ 59-65-40(D)). Options 2 and 3 carry no statutory state testing mandate; accountability runs through the association, which may impose its own annual testing or portfolio review, and many do. Confirm your association’s specific requirements, because they vary considerably.

An assessment is read against what you wrote down while it was happening, which is the part a morning hour tends to lose. Putting morning time and the church year on a record without inflating it.

What an evaluator or a test result gets attached to is the folder beneath the transcript. The Records Pack has the portfolio index with its evaluator summary, editable, in both editions.

The diploma and the transcript

South Carolina issues no state diploma to homeschoolers; the parent, or commonly the association, issues the diploma and transcript. Parents set their own graduation credit requirements, since the state’s 24-unit public school requirement does not apply, but Palmetto Fellows, LIFE and HOPE scholarship eligibility for homeschool graduates has its own documentation rules (a signed transcript and, for some awards, SAT or ACT thresholds), so most families mirror the public school unit pattern for safety. The Education Scholarship Trust Fund (S.C. Code § 59-8-110 et seq.) is open to home-educated students, but not at the same time as Options 1, 2 or 3. To take the scholarship a parent must attest under § 59-8-115(D)(4) not to participate in a home instruction program under § 59-65-40, § 59-65-45 or § 59-65-47, and § 59-8-115(H) makes that signed agreement what satisfies compulsory attendance instead. Awards were $7,500 per scholarship student for 2025-26 under § 59-8-125(C). ESTF carries its own testing obligations under § 59-8-150, including a norm-referenced or state summative assessment in grades 3 through 8 and a college or career readiness assessment in grades 9 through 12, which is stricter than Options 2 and 3.

A Christian college and a public university read the same page for different things. What each one asks a homeschooler for.

Where this comes from

Statute: S.C. Code Ann. § 59-65-40 (district approval option); § 59-65-45 (SCAIHS option); § 59-65-47 (fifty-member association option); § 59-8-110 et seq. (Education Scholarship Trust Fund)

Source: https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t59c065.php

Last reviewed: July 2026, on the 26th.

Homeschool law changes, and a page like this goes quietly out of date. Before a filing deadline, read the code above yourself. If we have fallen behind we would much rather hear it from you than have you find out at a district office.

All fifty states and the District of Columbia, each one citing the law it came from.

Filing is one part of it. Keeping the record is the other, and that is what our Records System is for: the editable transcript with the GPA already working, 131 academic course descriptions, the Bible and theology descriptions, and this same cited summary for every state and DC. Protestant and Catholic editions. Thirty-nine dollars, one household, however many children you teach.