South Carolina Department of Education


The South Carolina Department of Education is the state education agency of South Carolina. It is headquartered in Columbia at the Rutledge Building. The agency is overseen by an elected Superintendent of Education, currently Molly Spearman. Previous Superintendents have included Hugh S. Thompson, Mick Zais, Jim Rex, and Inez Tenenbaum.

Instructional Television

The Department of Education's Instructional Television team, part of the South Carolina Office of eLearning, works with South Carolina Educational Television to provide resources and services to South Carolina public schools, including instructional television for distance learning. ITV is responsible for the selection of video-based resources, the development of local programming to support the states K-12 curriculum, and the scheduling of approved resources. ETV provides production and technical delivery services to support instructional programming. K-12 and professional development programming are now delivered both by broadcast through the ETV satellite system and online via StreamlineSC.
ITV has produced with ETV award-winning series including Project Discovery and Eye Wonder. South Carolina focused resources including Detective Bonz, the SC History Mystery and Idella Bodie's SC Women Series are utilized to support the curriculum.

Executive Department

The state superintendent of education is elected at-large and serves a term of four years.

Executive Department Positions

The South Carolina State Board of Education is composed of one representative from each of the sixteen South Carolina Judicial Circuit Courts. County representatives for each circuit are responsible for electing their circuit's board representative who's term ends after four consecutive years. Any person who is a registered elector in the State and who has taken the oath of office as defined by the Constitution of South Carolina is eligible for board membership.
NameAreaEnd of Term
Mr. Micheal BrenanChairServes at will of the governor
Dr. Kristi V. WoodallChair-Elect, 16th Circuit December 31, 2022
Jon Butzon1st Circuit December 31, 2021
Crystal F. Stepleton2nd Circuit December 31, 2023
Dr. Shawn Johnson3rd Circuit December 31, 2023
Cathy D. Chapman4th Circuit December 31, 2022
Dr. Tracy N. West5th Circuit December 31, 2020
Dr. J. R. Green6th Circuit December 31, 2021
Carl S. Hinze7th Circuit December 31, 2022
Dr. Cynthia Downs8th Circuit December 31, 2021
Lawerence Kobrovsky9th Circuit December 31, 2022
Mrs. Debby A. Howard10th Circuit December 31, 2020
J. Steven English11th Circuit December 31, 2022
Jean W. Pearson12th Circuit December 31, 2021
David F. Whittemore, Jr.13th Circuit December 31, 2019
Valaree C. Smith14th Circuit December 31, 2020
Alan Walters15th Circuit December 31, 2023

Superintendents

Superintendemts serve 4-year terms. They used to serve 2-year terms.