Archives > 1976 South Carolina Code of Laws - Previous Versions > 2003 Session > Title 59

This statutory database is current through the 2003 Regular Session of the South Carolina General Assembly. Changes to the statutes enacted by the 2004 General Assembly, which will convene in January 2004, will be incorporated as soon as possible. Some changes enacted by the 2004 General Assembly may take immediate effect. The State of South Carolina and the South Carolina Legislative Council make no warranty as to the accuracy of the data, and users rely on the data entirely at their own risk.




SECTION 59-55-10. Establishment and maintenance of departments of junior college work by school boards.

The school board of any independent or special school district, when authorized by a three-fourths vote of the district so to do, may establish and maintain a department of junior college work to consist of not more than two years' work beyond a four-year high school course.

SECTION 59-55-20. Establishment and maintenance of junior college in cities of 5,000 or more.

In any school district in this State whose limits are coextensive with the limits of any city of five thousand inhabitants or more the school board, when authorized to do so by the majority vote of the electors of any such school district voting on the proposition, may establish, maintain or discontinue a junior college to consist of not more than two years of college work beyond a four-year high school course and may charge such tuition fees for instruction in such junior college as shall be fixed by any such school board.

SECTION 59-55-30. Buildings and equipment.

Any such school board may make use of any existing school building or school equipment or may provide any necessary building or equipment for the establishment and maintenance of any such junior college.

SECTION 59-55-40. Requirements for establishment and maintenance.

In the establishment and maintenance of such junior college courses, the following provisions shall be observed:

(1) Application on the part of any school to be classified as a junior college shall be made by the school board to the State Department of Education not later than July first of the first year for which a school seeks such classification and shall be accompanied by the curricula to be maintained;

(2) Each applicant shall be visited by a representative of the State Department of Education who shall make a report to the State Board of Education as a basis for its action upon the application at the next regular meeting;

(3) Each applicant will be notified promptly as to the action taken by the State Board;

(4) A junior college shall be a public school providing one or more two-year courses beyond the eleventh year of the public school course and it shall be located in a school district which maintains an accredited high school and employs a junior college dean and at least the equivalent of two junior college teachers who, together with the superintendent, shall constitute the faculty of the junior college;

(5) A junior college shall be maintained only when the district assessed valuation exceeds one million dollars;

(6) The superintendent of the college shall administer and exercise general supervision over the junior college and shall make such reports as the State Superintendent of Education may require;

(7) The superintendent of the college shall examine the certification of all persons under consideration as teachers in the junior college and recommend for employment only such persons as are found to be fully qualified in accordance with the standards established by the State Board of Education and he shall also keep a record of such certification and, on or before October first of each year, shall transmit a copy of this record to the State Department of Education;

(8) The building space available for this use shall be modern, adequate and well adapted to the needs of the work to be undertaken;

(9) There shall be provided a general and reference library, well chosen and adequate for the course offered and for the enrollment in the junior college;

(10) Suitable laboratory space and equipment shall be provided for such advanced work in the natural sciences as is included in the courses offered;

(11) The county superintendent shall prescribe the duties of the dean and such duties may be made to include instruction, organization, classification, discipline and management of the junior college;

(12) The junior college year shall consist of at least nine months, or thirty-six weeks;

(13) Students shall be limited to the following two classes: (a) regular students, who have completed, in a satisfactory manner, a full high school course or its equivalent and (b) special students, who wish to pursue special courses of college rank and who are deemed by the local authority fully qualified to do so;

(14) No school board shall, under any conditions, issue to any person a certificate or diploma showing the completion of a junior college course except upon recommendation of the county superintendent, and a two-year certificate or diploma shall be recommended only upon the completion in a credible manner of at least sixty semester hours, or its equivalent, in a course approved by the State Department of Education;

(15) The minimum length of a recitation period shall be fifty minutes; and

(16) The dean and instructors in a junior college shall have the following qualifications: (a) scholastic training, at least an A.B. or B.S. degree, or its equivalent, from a college recognized as fully entitled to confer such degree and (b) professional training, at least eighteen semester hours in education. These qualification standards are not to be interpreted as retroactive in their application to present instructors in any school district maintaining a junior college prior to May 20, 1935.

SECTION 59-55-50. Powers of State Department of Education over junior colleges.

The State Department of Education shall have the same supervision, control and powers over any such junior college, when established hereunder, as it now has over other departments of the public school system of this State.

SECTION 59-55-60. State aid for public schools not allocated to junior colleges.

No State aid for public schools shall be allocated to any junior college established hereunder.