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At Palmetto Independent Educators (PIE), we believe homeschool families should have the freedom to create an education that reflects their children’s needs, abilities, interests, and future goals.
Our role is to provide legal accountability, information, tools, resources, and support parents need to homeschool with confidence.
For the 2026–2027 school year, our vision is centered on one continuing goal: improving the way we operate so that PIE can better serve our members.
This means improving communication, strengthening educational resources, helping families understand the larger homeschooling journey, and continuing to develop systems that make important information easier to access when it is needed.
Better communication is one of our strongest priorities for the new school year.
PIE has continued developing its email communication system so that important information can be delivered quickly and efficiently. The system is already being used successfully to communicate with members at the individual account level.
Our next step is to expand our ability to communicate with groups of members based on information that is relevant to them—for example, students in a particular graduating class, families at specific grade levels, or members who need information about an upcoming process or opportunity.
Our goal is simple: provide the right information to the right families at the right time.
Homeschooling is a journey, and every family begins that journey from a different starting point.
PIE is continuing to develop resources that help parents look beyond a single school year and consider how today’s educational decisions may support tomorrow’s goals.
Our “My Journey” resources reflect this progression:
These resources are designed to help parents think about academic development, readiness, planning, interests, strengths, future opportunities, and educational goals while maintaining the flexibility that makes homeschooling unique.
The big picture is not about creating one path that every family must follow. It is about helping families better understand the choices available to them so they can create the path that works best for their children.
Parents need practical ways to understand where their children are academically, recognize areas for growth, and consider what may come next.
PIE has developed classroom assessment examples based on South Carolina educational standards for elementary and middle school students, with high school examples currently in development. These resources are provided for educational and planning purposes and are not intended to establish a required set of standards for PIE families.
Parents may choose to use the assessment examples as presented, adapt them to fit their own educational goals, or use the concepts as a model for developing assessments based on the standards and expectations they have chosen for their homeschool program.
The goal is to give parents practical tools for identifying strengths, recognizing areas that may need additional attention, and making informed decisions about placement, instruction, and future coursework.
PIE also plans to develop assessment examples based on advanced college-ready expectations for students participating in PIE’s Transcript Service.
All of these resources are intended as guides, not mandates. Parents remain responsible for choosing the educational approach, curriculum, standards, pacing, and goals that best meet the individual needs and future plans of their children.
Middle school is an important transition between building basic academic foundations and preparing for high school.
One of our continuing projects is:
Planning Sixth Thru Eighth Grade: Setting Up for Success
This resource will help families consider topics such as academic readiness, increasing independence, organization, course planning, high-school-credit opportunities, assessment, and preparation for the transition into grades 9–12.
Our goal is to help families recognize that high school planning does not suddenly begin in ninth grade. Thoughtful preparation during the middle school years can create more choices later.
High school brings new questions about course selection, credits, graduation requirements, transcripts, college preparation, scholarships, career preparation, and opportunities after graduation.
PIE is developing a Course Selection Guide for High School Homeschool to help families understand these decisions and make informed course choices.
This guide will support the broader My Journey: Reaching New Heights high school resources and help parents consider how individual courses fit into a student’s larger educational and post-graduation goals.
The purpose is not to tell families what choices to make, but to help them understand the consequences and opportunities associated with the choices that they do make.
PIE’s Transcript Service remains an important part of our high school support and planning resources.
The service is designed to remain affordable while providing consistency in the administrative process for students who may wish to pursue South Carolina scholarships, dual enrollment, college admission, and other higher-education opportunities. The office of PIE strongly recommends beginning participation in the Transcript Service in ninth grade, or earlier when a middle school student begins taking courses for high school credit.
During the 2026–2027 school year, one of our goals is to improve the way we educate families about the transcript process and the role it can play in long-term academic planning. For example, an important part of this process is class rank. For students pursuing certain South Carolina state scholarships, class rank may be one of the factors used to determine eligibility. Maintaining consistent academic records through PIE’s Transcript Service helps support an accurate and credible ranking process by ensuring that participating students’ courses, grades, GPA calculations, and course weighting are recorded using the same administrative framework.
Parents should understand not only how a transcript is prepared, but also why accurate course titles, grades, GPA calculations, course weighting, class rank, and thoughtful course planning may become important as students pursue state scholarships, colleges and universities, dual-enrollment opportunities, or other post-secondary goals.
The earlier families understand these processes, the better prepared they are to make informed academic decisions, maintain accurate records throughout the high school years, and avoid discovering important transcript or class-rank requirements late in a student’s high school journey.
PIE has developed a growing collection of educational resources, planning tools, guides, assessment examples, and support materials.
As that collection grows, simply adding more information is not enough.
We will continue working to improve the way resources are organized and connected so that families can more easily answer three important questions:
Improved navigation and organization will remain an ongoing part of PIE’s website development.
Development of the DebraLee AI Support Agent has shifted as PIE continues building the content foundation that will ultimately support it.
An effective AI resource depends upon accurate, organized, and comprehensive information. Our immediate priority is therefore to continue developing the educational content, guides, procedures, and resources that an AI-assisted system may eventually use to better serve members.
In the meantime, PIE will continue exploring technology and AI-assisted methods that may make it easier for families to locate accurate, relevant information throughout our website.
Many projects are underway, and additional resources will continue to be developed throughout the school year.
Although the tools may change and the resources may expand, PIE’s underlying philosophy remains the same.
We believe parents should remain at the center of their children’s education.
We believe homeschool families should have the freedom to choose curriculum, determine educational priorities, adjust instruction to meet individual needs, and create goals that reflect the interests and future plans of their children.
And we believe PIE’s responsibility is to support those families with affordable, practical, non-intrusive services and reliable information.
For the 2026–2027 school year, our vision is not simply to add more programs.
Our vision is to improve how PIE communicates, organizes, educates, and supports—so that families can better understand the homeschooling journey, make informed decisions, and move forward with confidence.
Respectfully,
Denise Merchant
Director Palmetto Independent Educators P.O. Box 36 Aiken, SC 29802 Phone: (803) 649-2415 Fax: Not Available (please use email) admin@homeschoolingwithpie.org palmettoindependenteducators.com