Not a lot of rosy reviews of the 2025 South Dakota Legislature’s performance, as aside from participants citing how South Dakota is closed for business, the Sioux Falls School District is noting today that the legislature spent their time trying to hurt schools, fight the culture wars at their expense, and failed to meet statutory obligations for funding:
School Board President Carly Reiter listed many of the school-related issues that the legislators spent “a majority of their time on” instead of discussing issues that she believed would actually help improve education in the state.
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- Increasing the cost for families to pay for courses offered in the high schools for college credits. “It really is going to affect low-income students more and affect their ability to continue on post high school.”
- Attempting several efforts to hang the Ten Commandments in all classrooms or schools. “That’s despite the fact that many legislators fail to abide by them themselves and not all students and staff are Christians.”
- Taking away funding to help teachers recertify in certain areas.
- Discussing jailing school librarians for some books that may be on shelves.
- Ignoring local control by requiring districts to accept cash for student activity events as many event venues only accept cards.
- Attempting to pass a voucher bill for families whose students homeschool or attend private schools thus taking money away from public education.
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and..
“I really have to question who the legislators are showing up for at this point. I really don’t understand,” board Vice President Dawn Marie Johnson said.
and..
Business Manager Todd Vik, who had been tracking bills all session with his staff, added that state law requires a 3 percent increase in aid unless inflation was below that level. “It’s above that,” he said.
Read the entire story here at Sioux Falls Live (subscription may be required).
I was speaking with a more recently elected legislator last night who had reached out to his superintendents to try to dig down into what he hoped were solvable problems.. and just came back with more problems that the legislature ignores, not the least of which is that given our status as 49th in teacher pay in the nation, other states are coming in and recruiting our graduates away.
As was noted to me in one of a long list of problems, one was that South Dakota is experiencing a teacher/ counselor/administrator shortage. Sioux Falls had a teacher fair. Some of the people looking for teachers were from Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Omaha, Minnesota. There were signing bonuses offered along with other incentives.
So, not only are we short-changing our investment into public education by idiotically trying to install slogans and 10 commandment posters on the wall, but we’re also usurping local control, failing to pay teachers, and accelerating their exodus from South Dakota. At the same time the same idiots who are trying to put up posters think they can solve the problem by taking more money from public education, and handing it off to those who are unaccountable in the education they are going to provide.
It’s not as if the legislature hasn’t tried at times. But over the last decade, we’re not just back where we started, but we’re worse off than ever:
Over the past decade, governors, legislators and local school boards have placed a high priority on raising teacher salaries in South Dakota, which have long been at or near the bottom in the nation.
And over the past few years, they have succeeded, as teacher pay has risen either moderately or significantly in every public school district in South Dakota since 2017, according to state data. The average salary increase across all districts was 13.5% and as high as 20% in some districts from 2017 to 2023.
But those gains have not translated into more spending power for educators, and in fact have in most cases left them further behind than they were before the pay-raise push.
When inflation is factored in, the vast majority of teachers have lost net spending power over that time, and some have seen their inflation-adjusted pay drop by more than 20% between 2017 and 2023, with rural school districts often taking the biggest hits, according to a new analysis by the Dakota Institute, a nonprofit economic research organization. The overall inflationary increase from 2017 to 2023 was 24.3%, according to the website USInflationcalculator.com.
Go read this story here at SD News Watch.
Next session, instead of worrying about stupid 10 commandment posters and trying to throw librarians in jail – and I mean that as derisively as you can imagine – we should demand action on education. And that doesn’t mean stripping funds from public schools.
And maybe the legislature can actually pay attention to a real issue for once, figure out how to improve funding for education and stop the bleeding of teachers from being prepared for careers here and shipping them out of state.
You know, when I worked in radio, my job was considered “useless”.
When I went back into teaching, my job is considered “dangerous”.
Perhaps I should go into politics, so I can be both “useless” and “dangerous”.
I’ve heard Cynthia Mickelson might be looking at Governor or Mayor of Sioux Falls.
That would be an interesting candidate.
She’d have the education community behind her.
I’d love to see her jump in a contest for the state legislature. She would help stop the stupid, and bring the legislature back to reality on what schools need.
She’d be a force.
She would be the perfect Lt. Governor candidate! She can’t win Governor yet but in time she could.
Agreed…which one is going to make the right move and pick her? State level name recognition, SF business ties, Support of educators, Not bad to look at, great speaker….she’s got it all.
The school board members are good people but a little narrow in their views. A good example, and it’s interesting they didn’t mention it, was their policy to prohibit use of cash at school events. That wound up getting reversed by the legislature.
It will be interesting to see, going forward, what happens when school board elections are synced with primary or general elections and there is much higher turnout in these elections.
The South Dakota Legislature: Finding Problems, and Creating Them When We Want To ™
School boards which want more money should work to increase their local property taxes.
As crazy as this year’s legislative session has been, blaming the legislature because they are constrained by a budget is pretty dumb….
I think they realize times are tight. They just want what was promised them in state law. Frankly, if it’s in law, I question if they have a cause of action to force the issue?
The same people complaining about state funding for schools will also be screaming bloody murder when the federal government stops paying its share of Medicaid expansion.
Everybody wants this stuff but nobody wants to pay for it.
I am willing to pay for it. I don’t support these numerous tax cuts where the dopey members of the current legislature have no clue about what depends on the revenue and how to make up for it when it is lost. You clearly have no idea who is complaining and who isn’t.
40 years of failed leadership leads to obvious and inevitable consequences.
Maybe the education folks should have gotten more involved in passing open primaries?
I am embarrassed, as a life-long GOP, to watch this manure pile of new idealogues bring nothing but madness to this state.
And yet, we have another session to come before these renegades are sent packing. A lot of damage can be in the offing.
If I didn’t know better, I could think the Democrats might be an option instead of these maroons.
Well, they are getting close to being the same thing. Anti energy, anti business, more government involvement in you personal life, more mandates, etc.
grudznick wonders if the teachers union and that Mr. Pawganie wishes now they had agreed to the SILT (seven indisputable levels of teachers) back in the day when the Governor, Daugaard, was offering the good teachers more money. It is a viable thought yet today. As the property tax for occupiers of their owned homes comes under the studies being formed, incentivized pay for the best teachers may come back into play. The SILT is a documented structure, and the government likes documented structures.
When you elect Morons with Mustaches to the legislature what do you expect?
How many “barely finished high school” or flunked out of college idiots do we have in there now?
The rural areas have way too much control of the state.