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Senate Bill 161 is scheduled to be heard on the floor of the Senate tomorrow. And while I certainly like the sponsor, this bill is just another awful attack on schools that will ultimately hurt them in the long run, and it does nothing for raising teacher salaries.

As noted on South Dakota Searchlight,

Sioux Falls Republican Sen. Sue Peterson told the state Senate Education Committee she introduced Senate Bill 161 to close the gap between the average salaries of teachers and administrators in South Dakota.

And..

The legislation would cap administrative salaries at three times a district’s average teacher salary.

And..

There is no nationwide ranking for average administrator pay by state through a professional organization like the National Education Association teacher salary listing, according to Rob Monson, executive director for School Administrators of South Dakota.

Monson, who spoke with South Dakota Searchlight after the committee hearing, also said he does not have complete data to compare the state’s administrative and teacher salaries.

Read the entire story here.

Close the gap? it does anything but.

So the comparison between teacher salaries and administrator salaries is anecdotal at best, and nobody has any real ranking of where administrator salaries really are.

About the only thing I can tell you is that the pool of competent administrators is not more and more plentiful. It is shrinking as fewer people have any interest in going into education in South Dakota. And when you see legislation like this, can you really blame them?

If I learned anything from being married to my wife  (Dr. Powers) who rose up through the ranks from being a teacher in special education, and eventually became a school administrator for a number of years, it’s that if you have good teachers, most often that’s because they were fostered and mentored by good administrators.

A School Administrator isn’t someone who says “this teacher goes here and this teacher goes here.” It’s far more complex than this legislation remotely gives administrators credit for.

In my wife’s role as a special ed administrator, I know she supervised well over 100 employees across 6 or 7 schools, and dealt with complicated issues with both teaching staff, professional specialties such as therapists, school psychs, etc. and complex students with everything ranging from mild learning disabilities to those receiving end-of-life care, but who were still eligible for a free and appropriate public education that needed to be delivered while they were receiving nursing care. And working to ensure compliance with both state and federal law in an attempt to keep the school district from being sued or found liable for civil rights violations.

Oh, most of these staff being supervised? They have masters level or doctoral degrees, as is required of the administrators.

If you are at the superintendent level, you absolutely have to have a doctoral degree, and you do all those things plus you are leading several hundred employees in a district the size of Brookings, you have to be a construction/project manager, public affairs director, you formulate and set a $75 million budget, and you are on call 24 hours a day. And I am quite sure I am leaving out massive parts of what they are responsible for.

Administrators are paid what the market rate in the region is, and that’s if the school district can find an administrator willing to do the job. Superintendents in this current environment are lucky if they can spend five or six years at the same position before the political environment demands a change. There is no guaranteed longevity and retirement after 20 years in a town at an administrators position, especially at a time when state politics are toxic towards educators. They know they are going into a short-term gig, but they also are going to be required to fully set up roots in the community. That does affect what they will go to work for.

What will happen if this legislation passes, and districts are unable to find a qualified administrator? There is a reason many school districts contract with search firms to find a superintendent. They don’t grow on trees, and as noted the market is shrinking.

I would venture a district who can’t find a leader at the price this legislation would hamstring them to will have to contract with an outside co-op or other organization for short-term district management for the district at a higher price then they would pay on a regular two-year contract basis. Alternatively, they might find somebody willing to do it on the cheap. Hoping they aren’t setting themselves up for mediocrity.

If Senator Peterson and other legislators want to find a way to improve  teacher salaries, they need to pay attention to the adage that “you don’t build a house by pulling down someone else’s,” because that is all this legislation does.

If we agree we want to pay teachers more in comparison to administrators, start in the budget by keeping teacher salaries in pace with inflation.  And find them more money.

Knuckle down and give them an existing revenue source or add new ones. Dedicate solar or pipeline revenues to education on top of existing sources. Do something besides give it lip service.

On this and other measures that legislators claim will make education better, legislators should quit trying to blow up the school for fireplace kindling, and then try to claim it will somehow be a victory because we have firewood to use.

Vote no on Senate Bill 161 tomorrow. For your local school’s sake.

(Update – The bill failed on a vote of 13 yea, and 22 nay votes.) 

State Representative Phil Jensen is in the Argus today expressing absolutely no regret over being removed as vice chair from the House Ed committee as the dust settles after his attempt to defund the Huron School District over “a tip” he claims he received for the district hundreds of miles from his own:

A South Dakota lawmaker who sought to introduce a bill to defund a school system outside his legislative district was removed from his committee leadership position.

It’s a result Rep. Phil Jensen, R-Rapid City, said he has “no regrets” about.

Jensen was demoted from his vice-chair position on the House Education Committee to a regular committee spot Wednesday.

and..

“I wanted to make them come to the table,” Jensen added. “It’s my style of being a lawmaker.”

Read that here.

It’s my understanding that House leadership announced today that Jensen will remain on the House Education Committee after their wrist slap. My question is why would they leave Jensen on House Ed at all?

At this point, they’re just encouraging his behavior, as Jensen is preening around as if his actions were something to be admired.

Thune Welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the U.S. Capitol

 “I want to thank Prime Minister Netanyahu for meeting with us, and assure him of the United States’ continued support for Israel.”

 

Click here to download high-resolution photos and here to watch the video. 

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor:

Thune’s remarks below (as delivered): 

“Mr. President, earlier this morning I met with Prime Minister Netanyahu here in the Capitol. 

“We had a good discussion about Israel’s security and about the imperative of the return of the rest of the hostages, who have been held in Hamas captivity for well over a year. 

“I enjoyed a candid personal discussion with the prime minister and was pleased that both Republican and Democrat colleagues were later able to join for a bipartisan conversation. 

“After a number of my Democrat colleagues boycotted Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to Congress last year, it is good that Democrat leaders chose to attend this meeting. 

“It would have been even better if Democrats had chosen to support the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, and we had been able to tell Prime Minister Netanyahu that the Senate had passed this legislation in response to the International Criminal Court’s illegitimate targeting of Israeli leaders. 

“But unfortunately two weeks ago all of my Democrat colleagues – all, all of them, save one – voted to block this bill. 

“The Democrat leader actually celebrated the fact that Democrats had blocked this legislation – even though allowing the ICC’s rogue actions to go unchecked could put not only Israelis but Americans in the ICC’s crosshairs. 

“That’s right, Mr. President. 

“Responding to the ICC’s illegitimate targeting of Israeli leaders is not just about protecting our ally Israel, it’s also about protecting our own citizens – our own servicemembers in particular. 

“Just a few years ago, the ICC opened an investigation into American servicemembers – despite the fact that, like Israel, the United States is not party to the ICC and thus is not under its jurisdiction. 

“It was good to hear this morning that President Trump will impose sanctions in response to the ICC’s targeting of Israeli leaders – and to protect American servicemembers. 

“I am grateful that we have a president who will stand up for our citizens – and for our ally Israel, as he has made clear already, including with his decision to prohibit funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. 

“This agency not only has a history of anti-Israel sentiment, but has a number of workers with ties to terrorist groups, and actually, if you can believe this, had workers participate in the October 7, 2023, attack. 

“I was also pleased by President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the so-called Human Rights Council at the United Nations, which unfairly targets Israel. 

“And I’m grateful that President Trump is taking a strong stand against one of the greatest enemies of peace in the Middle East, Iran. 

“Iran has spent decades fomenting unrest and terror, including providing funding and training to Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. 

“And the president’s recent national security memorandum was a welcome statement that Iranian aggression will no longer be tolerated. 

“The president has restored the maximum economic pressure campaign to bankrupt Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its terrorist proxies. 

“Mr. President, it’s good to see this kind of leadership.

“I want to thank Prime Minister Netanyahu for meeting with us, and assure him of the United States’ continued support for Israel. 

“And I look forward to working with President Trump to defend our allies and to protect our nation.” 

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Yesterday Rep. Phil Jensen was trying to defund Huron Public Schools, and today Sen. Tom Pischke and friends were trying to defund the National Guard.

I’m not sure anyone is safe while the legislature is in session this year.

Senate Majority Leader Jim Mehlhaff is speaking to the media in an article at South Dakota Searchlight today, and is noting that the Senate has no appetite for education savings accounts this year:

Based on discussions with the governor, Mehlhaff said, “we decided we just don’t want to go down that bunny trail over in the Senate this time.”

“We’re going to move on to other priorities,” the majority leader said during a legislative leadership press conference on Thursday at the Capitol in Pierre.

and..

Support within the Senate Republican caucus is slim, Mehlhaff said.

“There was zero love for it,” Mehlhaff said, citing budget constraints and competing priorities. “We’re cutting PBS, we’re cutting the state library, we’re cutting maintenance and repair on our public buildings, we’re cutting veterans service officers — we’re cutting all over the place.

Read the entire story here.

This might be one of the weirdest sessions I’ve ever seen with legislators’ unnatural fetish towards schools with a group of legislators who claim they favor local control but whose actions illustrate anything but; 10 commandments in classrooms, shoving religious chaplains down their throats, trying to place ceilings on what they can pay key employees. It’s as if they just want to send a list down, and tell districts how they believe we should run our schools without ever having walked in their shoes.

The fact that there’s little appetite in the Senate for taxpayer dollars going to private schools gives some hope that the madness may come to an end. But, we still have a number of days to go.

Interesting hearing this morning on House Bill 1069, where proponents of the measure to put a system in place to ensure that the vape prducts on the market are unadulterated included law enforcement, health officials, and others.   Opponents included Jordan Mason, who crawled out from under a rock to cash a check for lobbying to tell the committee there’s no problem with unregulated vape products from China, and Kevin Quick whom we’re familiar with from when he ran for office, and others.

Because that’s who legislators should trust when it comes to saying that products consumed by humans as shipped directly with no inspections or testing from China are ok?

The thought in the back of my mind is that if we’re fighting against a plague of fentanyl being dumped in the United States by China, and we’re fighting against TikTok gathering personal information and sending to China, we’re banning Chinese drones because there’s a concern they’re spying on us, etcetera and so on, why in the name of God are we trusting people who want to buy the products they sell as cheaply as possible as they claim the ingredients in Chinese vape juice and pens are magically safe for consumption and don’t need the extra step of the Food & Drug Administration verifying that? Despite them being illegal for consumption in China

Did we all forget about “trust, but verify?”

House Bill 1069 is a no brainer. People opposing it seem to paint a doom and gloom story but they are making money off of kids using these products. Why are they complaining about a $100 registration fee? Because that’s a pretty small price to pay to make sure what you sell isn’t going to hurt someone.

Why do they think it’s an unreasonable thing to sell products that have applied for FDA Approval to make sure they aren’t full of random chemicals.  Or worse, fentanyl:

As if highly addictive flavored nicotine didn’t already pose a serious threat, the illicit market has recently witnessed a concerning convergence between fentanyl and vaping devices. In an attempt to appeal to unsuspecting users, illegal drug manufacturers have been incorporating fentanyl into vape cartridges, which are then sold as seemingly harmless e-cigarettes. This deadly combination has created a new avenue for fentanyl consumption, catching many users off guard.

Read that here.

Right now South Dakota’s market is the legal market of FDA approved products. And it’s also the illicit market. Because we have no laws, and nobody is checking. That’s why we need this law.

The nation created the FDA in 1906 as a basic step to make sure that the things we consume don’t kill us. As a state, it’s irresponsible to allow this stuff to be sold without the most basic level of testing whether or not it will kill us, or at the least, make kids very, very sick.  And that’s the step that HB 1069 would take.

South Dakota legislators have put a measure together that will be heard tomorrow to try to stem the tide of unregulated Chinese vapes that are hitting the streets without any guarantee of what ingredients are in there, any quality or health control, and are not legal for use where they ship from.

HB 1069, An Act to regulate vapor products, as primed by State Representative Brian Mulder in the House, and Senator Sydney Davis in that chamber is starting its journey through the hearing process, and if you have ever watched any of the news reporting on these things, they are scary.

What South Dakota, and many other states are looking to do are to put some regulatory guidelines to require the shops that sell this stuff to register with the state, and to ensure their products meet FDA guidelines as opposed to illegal knockoffs arriving via international mail after being cooked up in a vat in a basement somewhere in China.

In South Dakota, we require people to be licensed to sell beer and wine and liquor and tobacco, fireworks, and other things.

It’s not my thing, but I don’t think it’s too much of a burden for the state to require people who sell this kind of thing to a) register with the state that they sell a product that has been known to give teenagers popcorn lung. And b) ensure what they sell actually follows FDA guidelines, and isn’t a vial of random chemicals from bad actors in China, much like the invasion we face from fentanyl.

Gov. Rhoden Appoints Jack Kolbeck to District 13 House Seat 

PIERRE, S.D. – Today, Governor Larry Rhoden appointed Jack Kolbeck to the open House seat for District 13, which includes portions of Lincoln and Minnehaha counties. You can find a photo of Kolbeck here.

“I worked with Jack for years as presiding officer of the State Senate,” said Governor Larry Rhoden. “He has a steady head on his shoulders and will be a strong partner to keep South Dakota strong, safe, and free.” 

Kolbeck served District 13 in the State Senate from 2017 to 2024, including as Majority Whip from 2023-2024. He has worked for more than 50 years in the malt beverage industry and has been the Key Accounts Manager for Beal Distributing since 2002. He graduated from South Dakota State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Political Science in 1974.

Kolbeck serves as a board member and Region 8 Director for the National Beer Distributors. He is a board member and past president of the South Dakota Beer Distributors Association. He is a board member of both Call to Freedom and the Abbott House of Sioux Falls. He is president of the 50-and-over Sioux Falls Men’s Slowpitch softball league.

“I want to thank Governor Rhoden for appointing me to the District 13 open seat to the House of Representatives,” said Jack Kolbeck. “I look forward to working with Governor Rhoden and Lieutenant Governor Venhuizen.  I appreciate all the support I received from so many people on my behalf.”

Jack has been married to his wife Muriel for 46 years. They have 3 children Kimberly, Jacquelyn, and Alex. They have 10 grandchildren. They have been residents in Sioux Falls for 50 years. They have been members of Central Church since 1978. 

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Senate Bill 12 had quite the journey today on the floor of the House of Representatives.

If you recall the little bill that could, Senator Michael Rohl’s bill to clean up a loophole in South Dakota campaign finance law which allowed nefarious characters the ability to loan PACs and campaigns unlimited funds, the last we saw of it it was in House State Affairs where the bill was amended with a poison pill amendment that jammed a second subject to cap what federal candidates could transfer to the state level.

It passed out of committee on a 12-1 vote after the amendment, opposed by Representative Brandei Schaefbauer.

Now on the floor, State Representative Tim Reisch gave an outstanding speech on why the amendment ran afoul of the single subject rule, and offered an amendment to fix the bill back to it’s original state. And he convinced enough of his colleagues to agree:

With a 1 vote margin, Representative Reisch convinced his colleagues to restore the original bill, and move the amendment off to it’s own measure.

Next up was the debate on the original bill as restored to stop unlimited loans from a George Soros type to buy elections in South Dakota. Again, Representative Reisch gave a great speech.  And it came time for the opponents. (singular). And the lone vote no in committee – sycophant and $4000 donor to Dakota First Action PAC, Representative Brandei Schaefbauer came up to bat.

(For the portion of the audio with Rep. Mortenson, I did enhance it so you could hear it better when he points out the rules and decorum about Brandei attacking a member of the Senate personally.)

If you can’t tell, Brandei short circuited when it was pointed out she had to speak to the bill and not throw out accusations against the bill sponsor, and descended into a bit of gobbledygook.

After that, Representative Reisch spoke to the merits of the measure to close it out.

So what happened? When it came down to actually vote, after Rep. Schaefbauer’s word salad erupted because she could not attack her opponent, something shifted. Like a seed that was planted in fertile soil, support for the bill sprouted and grew. She lost votes.

Rep’s Bahmuller, Greenfield, Heinemann, Hughes, and Jamison, all shifted votes to support reform. Although Tony Kayser – who donated to Doeden PAC –  switched to join the no votes, many of which received benefit from the Doeden PAC such as Aylward, Gosch, Hunt, Manhart, Moore, Reder, etc, the margin increased enough that the final vote was 38 in favor of campaign finance reform and only 29 who voted to let wealthy George Soros donors unfettered ability to dump cash.

From here, the restored Senate Bill 12 passed in it’s original form should go to the Governor for veto or signature.

And I would wager that it will be signed and we can consider that loophole closed.