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All states / South Dakota

South Dakota

Verified against current sources (2026-05-10) Cite this page ↓

South Dakota does not offer a bilingual education credential; ELD/ESL is an add-on endorsement. SEI training is not mandated for all teachers. As of 2023, 3.0% of public-school students are classified English Learners (NCES). Re-verified against current SEA sources on 2026-05-10.

3.0%
classified ELs (2023-09-29)
view trend →
ELD
credential types offered

Credentials

Bilingual education

Not offered.

English as a New Language Endorsement (Elementary + Secondary)

  • Add-on endorsement
Approved program
Unknown
Coursework
Required
Practicum
Unknown
Subject test
Required

ELD/ESL is an add-on endorsement under ARSD 24:53. SD DOE endorsement pages 404'd during the 2026-05-08 refresh; the baseline coding (coursework + Praxis test) is preserved pending re-retrieval. program/practicum left null per ambiguous-rule.

Sheltered English Instruction (SEI)

Not mandated for all teachers.

State policy signals

Seal of Biliteracy

Recognition for graduating students proficient in English plus another language.

Adopted in 2024.

Source: sealofbiliteracy.org (opens in a new tab)

ELP assessment

Annual English Language Proficiency test used for EL identification and reclassification.

ACCESS for ELLs · WIDA Consortium member.

Source: wida.wisc.edu (opens in a new tab)

History of licensure

Dated policy and verification events shaping this state's EL teacher credentials.

  1. EPAA 29(100) document analysis (Leider, Colombo & Nerlino, 2021)

    Leider, Colombo & Nerlino published in Education Policy Analysis Archives 29(100) a comprehensive document analysis of every state and DC's bilingual, ELD/ESL, and SEI teacher-credentialing requirements, professional teaching standards mentions, and EL-percentage figures, based on primary SEA sources collected October–December 2019. The 2019 coding of South Dakota's EL-credentialing landscape is preserved as a temporally-anchored research baseline against which the catalog's later verifications are framed.

    doi.org (opens in a new tab)

  2. Silver and Gold Seal of Biliteracy program launched

    South Dakota implemented the Silver and Gold State Seal of Biliteracy in 2024 — among the most recent statewide adoptions, with two performance levels (Silver intermediate, Gold advanced).

    sealofbiliteracy.org (opens in a new tab)

Sources

  1. [1] South Dakota Dept. of Education (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2019-11-15 (via Leider et al. 2021)
  2. [2] Leider, Colombo & Nerlino (2021), EPAA 29(100). Tables 2-5 + Appendix A. (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2019-11-15 (via Leider et al. 2021)
  3. [3] NCES Digest of Education Statistics, Table 204.20 (English Learners in Public Schools, fall 2021) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  4. [4] Seal of Biliteracy — South Dakota (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  5. [5] WIDA Consortium — current member roster (South Dakota included) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  6. [6] South Dakota Department of Education, Fall 2023 Public School Enrollment Census Count (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-10

Cite this page

Site content is published under CC BY 4.0. When citing a fact from this page, please cite both projectcert and the original Leider et al. (2021) paper the dataset extends.

APA
projectcert. (2026, May 10). South Dakota EL teacher certification. https://projectcert.org/states/sd/
Leider, C. M., Colombo, M. W., & Nerlino, E. (2021). Decentralization, teacher quality, and the education of English learners: Do state education agencies effectively prepare teachers of ELs? Education Policy Analysis Archives, 29(100). https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.29.5279
BibTeX
@misc{projectcert_sd_2026,
  author  = {{projectcert}},
  title   = {{South Dakota EL teacher certification}},
  year    = {2026},
  url     = {https://projectcert.org/states/sd/},
  urldate = {2026-05-10},
  note    = {Last verified 2026-05-10}
}
@article{leider2021decentralization,
  author  = {Leider, Christine M. and Colombo, Michaela W. and Nerlino, Erika},
  title   = {{Decentralization, teacher quality, and the education of English learners: Do state education agencies effectively prepare teachers of ELs?}},
  journal = {Education Policy Analysis Archives},
  volume  = {29},
  number  = {100},
  year    = {2021},
  doi     = {10.14507/epaa.29.5279}
}

See the methodology for how these data were collected, or the glossary for term definitions.