South Dakota Kinship Care School Rights

You Have More School Rights Than You Think

Grandparents and relatives raising children in South Dakota without court papers often assume they have no standing to deal with the school system. That's not true. Between state statute and federal law, kinship caregivers have several specific rights when it comes to a child's education — even without legal custody or guardianship.

The catch is that nobody at the school may tell you about them.

School Enrollment Under SDCL 13-28-10

South Dakota law doesn't require a custody order to get a child into school. SDCL 13-28-10 allows anyone a child is living with to ask the local school board to accept the child as a district resident. The board decides whether to accept the child as a resident upon that request.

If the board approves your request, the child attends school in your district. If it rejects the request, you have 15 days after receiving the rejection to petition the board for a hearing. The board's decision after the hearing may be appealed to the Circuit Court.

This is an administrative process. It doesn't change custody, doesn't affect parental rights, and doesn't require the biological parent's involvement or consent.

Special Education and IEP Rights

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), "parent" can include an individual acting in place of a biological or adoptive parent, including a grandparent, stepparent, or other relative with whom the child lives, or an individual legally responsible for the child's welfare. Living with the child alone does not make someone the IDEA parent.

If the school recognizes you as the IDEA parent, you may have standing to:

• Request a special education evaluation
• Participate in IEP meetings
• Sign IEP documents
• Review and consent to the child's educational services

There's a hierarchy, though. If more than one person qualifies and a biological or adoptive parent is attempting to act as the parent, IDEA presumes that parent is the parent unless they lack legal authority to make educational decisions; a judicial order naming another person also controls. If no parent can be identified or located after reasonable efforts, the district must assign a surrogate parent; other statutory situations include when the child is a ward of the State or an unaccompanied homeless youth.

If the child has a disability or you suspect they might, contact the school's special education coordinator early. You can also reach Disability Rights South Dakota (1-800-658-4782) for advocacy help with IEP processes and Section 504 accommodations.

School Meals: Free and Reduced-Price Lunch

Children living with relative caregivers can access free or reduced-price school meals, and the application process doesn't require proof of custody.

There are two paths:

1. Direct certification — if your household receives SNAP or TANF benefits, the child is automatically certified for free meals without a separate application
2. Standard meal application — you list the child as a household member and report total household income; eligibility is based on household size and income, using federal poverty guidelines

Either way, the child's enrollment in your home is enough. You don't need court papers to put a child on the meal program.

School Records and Communication

Schools send notices to the contacts they have on file, but enrolling a child under SDCL 13-28-10 alone does not establish FERPA parent status or guarantee access to records. Ask the school how it will send notices and whether you qualify to access the child's records.

If you need to request records from a child's previous school, the receiving district should initiate that transfer — you shouldn't have to chase it yourself.

For FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) purposes, a grandparent or other caregiver acting in the parent's absence may be considered a parent. If you're being blocked from seeing a child's records, ask the school how it applies FERPA's definition to your circumstances. SDCL 13-28-10 addresses school residency, not record access.

When You Need More Than School Rights

The school-specific rights described here don't extend to medical consent, dental care, or other parental decisions. For those, South Dakota has a different set of tools: parent-signed consent letters for routine care, SDCL 20-9-4.2 for emergencies, and court guardianship under SDCL 29A-5 when broader authority is needed.

The South Dakota School and Medical Consent guide walks through every pathway — school enrollment, medical consent, dental care, immunizations, special education — and includes ready-made templates for the most common situations kinship caregivers face.

See more South Dakota guides →