Heritage Foundation Leadership for America

On March 11, 1997, then-Governor William Janklow signed South Dakota's open enrollment law, House Bill 1075. Under this law, any student may attend any public school in the state. If neither the sending nor the receiving district provides transportation, it becomes the parents' responsibility.[1]

During the 2000 legislative session, two school choice bills were introduced. H.B. 1241 would have established independent, nonsectarian public "voucher schools." Students in voucher schools would have received a "nonsectarian voucher" worth $3,666 for tuition. The bill was approved in committee but was defeated on the House floor.[2]

The second bill, H.B. 1265, would have provided students with vouchers to attend accredited private schools. The vouchers would have been awarded for the amount of the private school's tuition or one-third of the state's expenditure per public school pupil, whichever was less. If test scores at participating schools failed to exceed national averages for two consecutive years, the South Dakota Department of Education and Cultural Affairs could have refused to grant vouchers for those schools. This bill likewise was approved in committee but was defeated by a House vote.[3]

In 2002, South Dakota lawmakers narrowly voted down a bill that would have allowed homeschool students to participate in public school athletic teams. The bill, H.B. 1072, was approved by the House Education Committee by a vote of 11 to 4, but when it reached the full House, it was defeated by one vote: 34 to 33.[4]

Senate Bill 156, introduced in January 2004 by Senator Brock Greenfield (R-District 6), would have required school districts to monitor all home-school students when they took national or state standardized achievement tests. This bill was voted out of committee 5-2.[5]