The Project 2025 Administration‘s to make America dumber and weaker proceeds apace, now with the war on immigrants synergizing with the war on education to make it harder for South Dakota to get teachers:
“The teacher shortage in South Dakota has not gone away. We’re still feeling it,” said SDEA Director of Public Affairs, Sandra Waltman.
Waltman, with the South Dakota Department of Education, said last year, there were about 450 Visa teachers. This year, it’s up to around 600. Most are on a J-1 Visa.
“In order for them to continue teaching, they would have to return to their home country. And reapply to come back. There are some school districts that would have looked into how can we keep them here because we are not able to fill all of our teaching positions and the H1 visa option was an option, but with the fees going to $100,000, that becomes impossible for those districts,” Waltman said.
New immigration bills have increased the price. J-1s increased by $250, but the H1-B Visas, allowing for a longer stay, are now charging $100,000, killing the hope of some schools and their teachers [Beth Warden, “Rising Visa Fees Could Worsen SD Teacher Shortages,” KSFY, 2025.10.09].
Maybe we can just send the National Guard to understaffed schools. The Guards aren’t teachers, but they’re getting all sorts of practice at crowd control.
South Dakota representatives in DC, apparently asleep, seem to be cogs in Trump’s wheel of destruction. How many more farmer bailouts due to consequences of ridiculous tariffs and pissing off the Chinese, rural hospital closings, Republican socialization and partial takeovers of corporations (wtf kind of hypocrisy is this?), NOAA gutting, etc do we need to endure these next 3 years? We won’t last 3 more years at this rate.
Does Trump have pictures and dirt on everyone or what’s going on here? I truly want to know because I think you know better.
Who wants to live in this type of environment of constant instability??? Do you think it’s moral/ethical to treat people like cattle even if they’re not legal citizens? Come on.
Don’t blame the Democrats. You’re in power. You own it.
… and what about healthcare workers; doctors and nurses?
Gee, once the immigrants are gone from South Dakota those young Charlie Kirk Republicans will step up and run the dairy farms, work the slaughterhouses, take up construction jobs, marry young girls (17 and under), have lots of kids, do whatever needs to be done. A paradise awaits you South Dakota. You can all home school your kids. No need for vaccinations either. Now, what to do about the reservations?
If you cannot enrich President Trump, you have no business in this country: kleptocracy at its finest.
35th safest, 47th in workplace safety, 39th in emergency preparedness rank and tied for 45th in climate disasters per capita South Dakota is truly a failed state. Students in South Dakota are fifth in overall rank of those in debt and suffer that load at the highest proportion in the US. The Bendagate state is 37th in grant and work opportunities rank and is tied for 42nd in student work opportunities. 113,750 people in South Dakota don’t have enough food including 1 in 5 children.
Larry, where do you find all your stats? I assume you don’t live in S.D. however these stats are important for South Dakotans to see. So many have not lived anywhere else and have nothing to compare it to. So many think that the rest of the country is a hell hole, especially the east and west coast states thanks to Fox news. People know things are bad here financially, but they believe elsewhere is worse.
After the retirement surge in 2014 and during covid, teachers moved closer to their kids, mainly out of state. Several “Teachers for America” came to this area to work 2-year contracts but there was a great deal of turnover. Now, some teachers from the Philippines work in McLaughlin but live in Mobridge because of a shortage of housing. Of course, not much here either.
Younger teachers have left the area to work where there are more resources for the students, such as broadband. The Biden admin allocated enough money to have broadband everywhere in S.D. but that grant was rescinded by the Trump admin. So, we still have pockets of places without cell phone service either, lack of towers.
Why would any young person stay here?
Red state failure is a feature not a bug.