South Dakota calls homeschooling "alternative instruction," and since a 2021 rewrite of the law it asks very little: one notification per child, filed once, with no annual renewal, no standardized testing, and no state-prescribed curriculum beyond the basics. The 2021 law (Senate Bill 177) is worth knowing by name because older guides still describe requirements it repealed, including achievement testing in specified grades and birth certificate filing. Today the parent runs the program, keeps the records, and issues the diploma, and state law even tells the scholarship office to accept the parent's transcript.
Legal framework
Alternative instruction lives in South Dakota Codified Laws 13-27-3, which excuses a child from public school attendance when the child receives alternative instruction. The section sets the whole substantive standard: instruction must cover the basic skills of language arts and mathematics, all instruction must be given so as to lead to a mastery of the English language, the person providing instruction is not required to be certified, and no person may instruct more than twenty-two children. The South Dakota Department of Education's home schooling page runs the notification system and publishes the current forms and FAQ.
Notification & registration
A parent files an Alternative Instruction Notification within 30 days of beginning alternative instruction, either through the Department of Education's online system or on the paper form filed with the department or the local district office. The filing is one time per child. The state's own guidance says individuals are only required to submit a notification one time for each child unless a transition has occurred: an updated notification is due within 30 days if the child moves to or open enrolls in another district while continuing alternative instruction, returns to a public school, or stops being homeschooled. No birth certificate is filed with the notification since the 2021 change.
Recordkeeping
The state collects nothing after the notification: no test results, no portfolio, no attendance report. Senate Bill 177 expressly ended the old requirement that alternative instruction students take and submit nationally standardized achievement tests. The Department of Education's alternative instruction FAQ still strongly recommends keeping a detailed academic record of student learning, including attendance and grades earned, because the transcript is what unlocks everything later: activity participation, re-entry to public school, dual credit enrollment, postsecondary acceptance and scholarship applications. Districts must lend textbooks at no charge to resident students ages five through nineteen, alternative instruction students included.
Graduation requirements
South Dakota sets no graduation requirements for alternative instruction students; the parent decides when the program is complete. For families with an eye on the state scholarship described below, the smart move is to build the high school years around the scholarship's required course pattern (four years of language arts, four of math, four of science and three of social studies among them), since eligibility is documented from the parent's own transcript. Students at least sixteen years old may alternatively be approved to take the state high school equivalency tests, and high schoolers in grades 11 and 12 can take dual credit coursework at a significantly reduced rate with an active notification on file.
Who issues the diploma
The parent or guardian conducting the alternative instruction program issues the diploma in the name of the family's program. Neither the Department of Education nor the resident district issues any credential for alternative instruction, and the scholarship statute confirms the parent's authority in writing: it calls for a transcript of completed coursework that is issued by the parent or guardian.
College & military recognition
The South Dakota Board of Regents universities and the state technical colleges admit alternative instruction graduates routinely, and the South Dakota Opportunity Scholarship names them expressly. Under SDCL 13-55-31.3, a student who received alternative instruction qualifies with a composite or superscore of at least 24 on the ACT (or the Board of Regents equivalent on the SAT) plus a parent-issued transcript documenting the required coursework, entering the program within five years after the school year of graduation. Since 2021, alternative instruction students may also participate in interscholastic activities in the resident district on the same conditions as enrolled students. For military enlistment, homeschool graduates qualify as Tier 1 applicants under current Department of Defense policy when they present a diploma and transcript.
Official source
For current statutory text, forms, and procedural updates, the authoritative source is the South Dakota Department of Education. Homeschool laws change, so confirm specific requirements directly with the state before relying on them.
South Dakota homeschool organizations
State agencies publish the rules, but they rarely help you interpret them. For that, South Dakota homeschool families generally turn to Homeschool South Dakota, the statewide homeschool association. Groups like this one track legislative changes, run conventions and support-group networks, and answer the practical questions that statutes leave open. We are not affiliated with them and receive nothing for the mention; they are simply the most useful next stop after the state's own guidance.