For complete analysis by Home School Legal Defense Assocation about pending legislation affecting home schooling click on the state and federal links below.

Last updated 12 March 13

The 120th session of the South Carolina Legislature began January 8th. Any bill introduced after that will have until May, 2014 to pass both the House and the Senate. SCHEA will monitor all bills introduced in both the House and the Senate throughout this legislative session. Please check back often as we will attempt to keep this page current. If a bill requires action on the part of home schoolers, SCHEA will send an alert to its membership. If you have any questions about the bills, please feel free to contact SCHEA here. If you do not know who your representative is, go to www.votesmart.org and type in your zip code. You can find all the contact information there for your representative and senator.
	S628 is the South Carolina Parental Rights bill. This bill gives parents the right to direct the upbringing, education, and care of the parent's child as a fundamental right, and to prohibit the state from infringing on this right.
	S451 Would have home schoolers " taxed in the same manner as a public facility providing like services." This is quite nebulous. Senator Bright said he really meant that we would be relieved of property tax. Right now it's a bill full of potential hazards & we'll watch it.
	H3478 would radically change home schooling in SC as we have known it for the past 20 years. It would eliminate the third option and require all home schoolers to take standardized testing in the public school. It would also require all accountability groups to report names, not numbers, of students enrolled with them.
	S279 Once again our legislators have introduced a school choice bill. This one very carefully words the home schooler involvement. It gives us $2000 per child per year tax credit for home schooling expenses.
	S44 Teacher Protection Act. Although this bill pertains primarily to public school teachers, it mentions specifically "home school" teachers. In situations where students are "not related by blood" to the teacher (ie co-op classes) the teacher could bring civil action against a student.
	H3455 H3424 S134 Child Development Classes. Once again this is being introduced as a voluntary opportunity for "at risk" students to begin school at the age of four. It always has the possibility of expanding the mandatory age for school. While home school parents begin home schooling from birth, we would rather not have the government compel us to do so.
	S158 Drivers License and School Attendance. Once again legislators would like to tie school attendance with driver's license privileges. While they included the wording "this does not change the way home schoolers report attendance" it would potentially still leave the door open for additional mandatory reporting by accountability associations.
	H3371 H3024 Child Abuse. This bill, while appearing good initially, would require anyone to report suspected child abuse. This leaves the door wide open for the unfounded reports of child abuse that frequently intimidate home schooling parents.
	H3168 Grandparent Visitation. This bill, seen before in other forms, would allow judges to grant visitation rights to grandparents over the parents' objections. It stands to thwart the rights of parents to raise their own children.

When contacting legislators, we all tend to use email. At times, that is a good method. However, according to their own accounts, legislators don’t tend to read their mass amounts of email and give it the consideration that they do to phone calls and letters. Several confirmed that their first choice is a phone call and their second choice is a letter (in a #10 envelope, handwritten address). They also made sure to make it clear that they really do want feedback and people to contact them, but in the above manner.