Homeschool Requirements in South Dakota
South Dakota asks very little of you. You did not bring your children home for the sake of a form. Here is the form anyway. Begin with the first heading: what you send in, if anything, and the day it is due. There is not much after that. Every claim is cited at the foot, so you can hold it against the code rather than take our word for it.
What you send in, and when it is due
One-time Alternative Instruction Notification filed with the SD Department of Education (online system or paper form), within 30 days of beginning alternative instruction. Only one notification per child unless a “transition” occurs (moving to a different resident district, stopping homeschooling, or enrolling in a public/nonpublic school), in which case an updated notification is due within 30 days. No annual renewal. SDCL 13-27-3.
Days and hours
No statutory hour requirement. SDCL 13-27-3 requires instruction “for at least the same length of time as students in the public schools”, commonly read as roughly 175 days. This is one of the softer points of SD law; there is no reporting mechanism verifying it.
Subjects the law names
Only language arts and mathematics are required, and instruction “shall be given so as to lead to a mastery of the English language.” No other mandated subjects. SDCL 13-27-3.
The law names the subjects. It does not name the course titles a registrar will read, and Bible is where that gap costs families most. Booking Bible as a real subject on a transcript.
What you keep
No records required to be submitted or maintained by statute. No portfolios, no periodic reports. Keeping your own attendance log, curriculum list, and transcript is strongly recommended (especially for high school) but is not legally mandated.
Testing and evaluation
None. South Dakota’s 2021 overhaul (SB 177, 2021) removed the prior standardized-testing requirement for grades 4, 8, and 11. No state assessment, portfolio review, or progress report is required.
The diploma and the transcript
No state rules on homeschool high school credits, transcripts, or diplomas. Parents issue their own diploma and transcript; South Dakota does not accredit or validate them. An active alternative-instruction notification on file is required to access reduced-tuition dual credit (plus a Memorandum of Understanding), and to participate in public-school athletics/activities, so families with a high schooler doing dual credit should confirm the notification is active in the DOE system.
A diploma you signed yourself rests on the transcript behind it and on nothing else. What does not belong on a homeschool transcript.
If the transcript is the piece you are short of, it is free on its own: The Transcript Template, with the weighted and unweighted GPA already working.
Where this comes from
Statute: S.D. Codified Laws § 13-27-3 (as amended by 2021 S.B. 177); see also SDCL 13-27-1 (compulsory attendance, ages 6-18) and 13-27-3.1.
Source: https://doe.sd.gov/oatq/homeschooling.aspx
Last reviewed: July 2026. The day is not recorded.
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.