The South Carolina Public Charter School District is a school district based in Columbia, South Carolina, United States that currently includes eleven public charter schools from different areas of South Carolina. The district has over 9000 students, of which over 7000 learn online in a virtual learning environment. While public charter schools are sometimes mistaken for private schools, all public charter schools in the United States are authorized and operated by public school authorities. In the case of the South Carolina Public Charter School District, it is an extension of the South Carolina Department of Education.
The district operates the following public schools, of which some are "brick and mortar" schools and some are "virtual" schools:
Another school has transferred to the District from the Lee County School District as of August 2010.
The virtual learning schools in the district use an education management company. In some states, these companies are for-profit, yet in South Carolina these companies are prohibited by law from being for-profit. The schools are actually different entitites than the management companies that serve the schools. For example, Palmetto State e-Cademy changed its education management company in 2009, which demonstrates that the school is broader than the hired management company. In practice, the line between school and education management company can be difficult to see, but the law in South Carolina is clear in making an operational and organizational distinction between the education management companies and the schools.
With just two completed years of operation, the South Carolina Public Charter School District is one of the fastest growing school districts in the nation, yet it is one of the lowest funded public school district in the nation, according to findings secured from the U. S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences through that institute's national center for education statistics.
The South Carolina Public Charter School District was created as a charter school authorizer by the South Carolina legislature as one way for public charter schools to be approved for operation in the state. The state legislature did this, in part, to resolve various legal questions regarding resource allocation for public charter schools in local districts. In addition, the legislature hoped that a little competition with local school districts might serve to further prod the state education establishment into making room for reform.
Another way for a public charter school to open in South Carolina is through the auspices of a local public school district, but many such traditional districts are extremely hesitant to open public charter schools for a variety of reasons.
The South Carolina Public Charter School District is not funded through local funding (property taxes), which means that when a public school student attends a public school in the South Carolina Public Charter School District, the South Carolina Public Charter School District is not given funding for educating that child. Instead, the local school district is provided the local funding for the student even though the student does not attend a school in the local district. This means that the South Carolina Public Charter School District operates only through federal categorial funding and South Carolina state-wide funding. Together, these two revenue sources provide for an average of roughly $3,500 per student per year. This is roughly one-third of the average annual funding per student in South Carolina. When challenged, similar such constraints have been struck down by courts in other states, most recently in Georgia.
The South Carolina Public Charter School District is unique in the United States for being the only state-wide public school district.
Other public charter schools in the state are authorized by other school districts.