The South Carolina Department of Education’s (SCDE) Summer Break Café returns at the beginning of June. As the official summer feeding program of the State, any child 18-years-old or younger will be able to access healthy meals completely free-of-charge at approved sites across the state.

In 2015, the South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) developed a State Charter School accreditation process as a means to ensure all stakeholders recognize South Carolina public charter schools as meeting operational expectations. This is an update to that initial guidance, taking into account a mechanism for accreditation in a school’s initial year of operation.

The South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) has launched South Carolina’s new Education Scholarship Trust Fund (ESTF) program for K12 students. Funding for eligible students begins prior to the 2024-25 school year, and under the law, school districts can serve ESTF program students by becoming Education Service Providers (ESP). As an ESP, districts may better provide their educational services to students who currently are not able to access these opportunities. The SCDE is pleased to facilitate the ease with which districts can accept ESTF students.

The Office of Educator Effectiveness and Leadership Development is pleased to announce dates for instructional leadership development cohorts beginning summer and fall 2024. Our mission is to increase access to highly effective teaching and leadership for every student in South Carolina. Participants in our cohorts build their leadership capacity in three focus areas: personalization, collective leadership, and access to effective instruction.

In preparation for the upcoming 2024-25 school year, we are offering PADEPP evaluator training to new superintendents and new principal evaluators. Anyone who will be evaluating principals must attend the one-day training. The virtual PADEPP trainings will be offered on July 16, July 29, and August 5. The face-to-face PADEPP trainings will be offered on August 19, August 29, September 5, and September 10. These trainings are repeat sessions, so participants will need to attend only one of the training dates. 

We are pleased to introduce a unique opportunity for the 2024–2025 school year, in collaboration with the American Institutes for Research and partners including the University of Florida, WestEd, and the University of Texas. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, this opportunity centers around the Promoting Adolescents’ Comprehension of Text (PACT) study. PACT presents evidence-based social studies and literacy teaching strategies that have proven highly effective over a decade of research, significantly boosting students’ social studies content knowledge, literacy skills, and academic language proficiency.

The South Carolina Department of Education’s Office of Student Support will offer four regional Diploma Planning Institutes in partnership with the National Dropout Prevention Center and Transition Alliance of South Carolina for school level graduation teams. The Diploma Planning Institute is a three-day, in-person working event that guides school level teams to build school-specific, research-based, and foundational dropout prevention plans that have a high probability of improving performance and graduation rates of at-risk students.

In an effort to improve clarity and efficiency of communications with educators across the state, the South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) is now requiring that all district-provided teacher email addresses be entered into the PowerSchool student information system.

On May 18, 2018, Governor Henry McMaster signed into law Act 213, which directed districts to begin implementation of MTSS during the 2019–20 school year. Act 213 requires all districts and charter schools to annually report data on implementing MTSS and literacy universal screening procedures. These district reports are due to the SCDE by June 28, 2024.

We are writing jointly on behalf of the South Carolina Department of Education and the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education to acknowledge the challenges you all have faced following the comprehensive overhaul and delayed rollout of the new FAFSA for the 2024-25 academic year.

The South Carolina Department of Education is pleased to recognize high school seniors who will be entering the military or attending a military service academy with a red, white, and blue honor cord to be worn during graduation ceremonies. Thank you for participating in this program to honor the commitment these students are making to serve our country.

The South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) Office of Early Learning and Literacy
(OELL) will offer several free professional learning opportunities (PLOs) for teachers, teaching assistants, reading coaches, instructional coaches, and administrators.

The South Carolina Department of Education Office of Assessment and Standards ELA
standards team is pleased to announce a two-hour webinar via Microsoft Teams for
administrators supporting the implementation and instruction of the 2023 SC CCR ELA
Standards.

The due date for all budget amendments is Sunday, June 30, 2024 for grant awards ending June 30 and/or any expenditures that will be incurred on or before June 30, 2024. No amendments will be allowed for these funds from June 30, 2024, through August 15, 2024.