As South Carolina parents are considering education options for their children and submitting their applications to participate in the Education Scholarship Trust Fund program, one question we have received is about how the ESTF program works with South Carolina’s 3 existing homeschooling options. There is a lot of misinformation going around on this topic, so please know that all the information presented here is all thoroughly researched and verified by the South Carolina Department of Education.
Can you homeschool with the Education Scholarship Trust Fund?
Under what South Carolina law traditionally considers homeschooling, no.
The ESTF law specifically prohibits participation in homeschool options 1, 2, and 3 while using ESTF funds. This prohibition was enacted at the request of several homeschool families and organizations that specifically asked to be left out of the program. Accordingly, parents who enroll their children to receive ESTF scholarships must agree “not to participate in a home instruction program under Section 59-65-40, 59-65-45, or 59-65-47.” Those South Carolina code sections refer to South Carolina’s homeschooling accountability options 1, 2, and 3 respectively.
From the SC Department of Education: Option One allows the parents to home school their children under the auspices of a school district, if approved by the board of trustees. Under Option Two, parents may home school their children with the support of the South Carolina Association of Independent Home Schools (SCAIHS). In Option Three, parents may choose a home school association which has no fewer than fifty members and meets the home school requirements.
However, the Education Scholarship Trust Fund law DOES create a new choice for ESTF parents to educate at home, outside the three homeschooling options in Title 59 Chapter 65 of SC law.
The key phrase to that allows parents the choice to educate at home resides in SC Code 59-8-115(I), which reads: “A parent’s signed agreement under subsection (E)(4) satisfies the state’s compulsory attendance law pursuant to Section 59-65-10.”
This means that ESTF recipients are legally allowed to educate their children at home, provided they do not participate in the three traditional homeschool options.
Accountability under this new “educate from home” option is provided in the form of a required annual test that ESTF parents must report directly to the South Carolina Department of Education. The law allows this to be either the state test or a Department-approved formative (multiple tests taken throughout the year like MAPP) or nationally norm-referenced summative (taken once a year, like Iowa) test.
If a parent does not comply with the law and tries to register their child in an option 3 homeschool association while using ESTF funds, they are violating the law and will face consequences like having their scholarship revoked and potentially having to repay any spent funds.
What does educating at home under the ESTF program look like?
Parents who wish to pursue this educate at home option (what the ESTF law calls “personalized learning”) will have to comply with all requirements of the ESTF program. This includes the submission of annual standardized testing as outlined above and “to provide, at a minimum, a program of academic instruction for the eligible student in at least the subjects of English/language arts to include writing, mathematics, social studies, and science” (Section 59-8-115-D4).
Parents utilizing this option can use ESTF funds for any of the eligible expenses, including but not limited to curriculum and instructional material, school supplies, technology, tutoring, testing expenses, online classes, contracted teaching services from individual teachers, and “approved contracted services from a public school district or a public charter school including individual classes.” Many traditional homeschool curriculum vendors, like BJU Press, Apologia, Beautiful Feet Press, and more, are registered as ESTF education service providers, and more are being added frequently. If a parent wishes to seek payment for anything they feel do not fit under any of the categories in the law, ESTF eligible expenses include “any other educational expense approved by the department to enable personalized learning.”
This gives ESTF parents an enormous amount of flexibility in how they wish to customize their child’s education. For example, so long as all the specific education service providers are approved by the Department of Education, a student could take one class online, one class at a charter school, one class taught by their parent from a purchased curriculum, one class at a nearby private school, and one taught by an individual teacher. They can supplement those classes with services from a tutor.
If a homeschool co-op was willing to be an education service provider under the ESTF program, an ESTF student could even take a class at the co-op, so long as the co-op does not require students to register under an option 3 homeschool association. Parents can mold their child’s personalized learning plan to fit their unique needs and the options most conveniently available.
The SC Department of Education is in the process of registering education consultants and transcript management services with the ESTF program, so that parents educating their children at home under this option have someone to manage their student transcripts.
What does the testing requirement mean?
Students in the Education Scholarship Trust Fund program are all required to submit annual documentation of academic progress to the South Carolina Department of Education.
For students in kindergarten through second grade, testing is not required, but some documentation of academic progress still must be submitted. This could look like a report card, sample work, or a portfolio.
For students in third grade through twelfth grade, standardized testing is required to be submitted to the Department of Education at the end of the school year. ESTF scholarships can be used to cover the cost of those tests, but the parents are ultimately responsible for ensuring their child is tested and that scores are submitted to the Department of Education.
The ESTF law clarifies the kinds of testing needed to be “a nationally norm-referenced summative assessment annually or a formative assessment at the beginning of the school year, at the end of the first semester, and at the end of the school year” for children in grades three through eight; and “that each scholarship student in grades nine through twelve takes a department-approved, nationally norm-referenced assessment, formative assessment, or assessment that demonstrates the student’s college or career readiness.” Right now, approved tests include SCReady, Iowa, the Classical Learning Test, or Stanford, or formative assessments such as MAPP, iReady, or STAR. PSAT/SAT/ACT tests are accepted for high school students. The Department of Education is working on expanding that list, so ask them about other tests you might be interested in submissing.
Students with disabilities for whom standardized testing is not appropriate do not have to take standardized tests, but they do still need to submit some sort of documentation of academic progress. Like grades K5 – 2, they can submit a portfolio, work samples, and/or a report card.
Conclusion
The Education Scholarship Trust Fund program is brand new for the state of South Carolina, and many people are not aware that this option exists for educating their child at home. If you hear from someone that this is an illegal way to educate your child at home, they are incorrect and are not aware of the new changes to state law. The Education Scholarship Trust Fund program is committed to ensuring parents have the ability to educate their child in the way that best meets that child’s individual learning needs. Their goal is to give parents flexibility, not to police curriculum or unnecessarily regulate parents utilizing this option. Under Superintendent Ellen Weaver, parents can be assured that the Education Scholarship Trust Fund program and the South Carolina Department of Education are not seeking to increase regulation and restrictions on any parents who are choosing to educate their students at home – whether under traditional homeschool options 1, 2, or 3 and those who have chosen the “educate at home” option under the Education Scholarship Trust Fund program.
As this is still a new program, some of the logistics and details are still being sorted out – so please ask any questions that you have about this educate at home option. They may help us (and the Department of Education) address issues that have not yet come up! You can email us at info@scschoolchoice.com anytime.
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