King Donald’s war on immigrants is making it harder for South Dakota to find teachers. The teacher shortage is so bad that the Critical Teaching Needs Scholarship Board voted last week to offer its scholarships to any prospective teacher, not just those going into certain disciplines:
Currently, South Dakota’s Critical Teaching Needs Scholarship targets college students studying for specific teaching fields such as special education, high school math and science, and career and technical education. Awardees must maintain a 2.8 grade-point average and teach in the state for five years.
“You could argue that any certified teaching position, right now, remains in a shortage,” state Department of Education Secretary Joseph Graves said during the virtual meeting of the Critical Teaching Needs Scholarship Board.
…The board approved a motion to open the scholarship to all K-12 teacher education students and to make it auto-renewable for recipients who maintain the required GPA. Currently, students have to reapply after the first year [Joshua Haiar, “Board Expands ‘Critical Needs’ Teaching Scholarship to All Prospective Teachers, Citing Shortage,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2025.10.16].
We might need to amp up funding for those scholarships to tackle the teacher shortage. The Department of Education says 137 full-time-equivalent teaching positions went unfilled at the beginning of this school year; nearly half of those positions remain empty, while districts addressed another third of the vacancies by adding workload to other staff, eliminating programs, or increasing class size. According to Haiar, the board awarded just 12 Critical Needs Teaching Scholarships two school years ago.
Granting 137 scholarships would cost about $1.37 million. The Education Enhancement Trust Fund from which we draw those scholarships ended the fiscal year with a value of $786 million. The FY2025 net return of 5.8% works out to $45.6 million. So it appears South Dakota can afford more teacher scholarships; the question is, is cheaper college tuition enough to entice young movers and shakers to commit to spending their first five years of professional earning power making the 46th-highest teacher pay in the nation.
I’ll teach all the trans kids and the gay kids. I can groom the others. I would love to start teaching in Manderson. I like the name. Soros will cover my salary.
I know several retired teachers in long term sub positions right now in the Mobridge, Wakpala and McLaughlin school districts. We just finished up the first quarter, and some positions are still open, even with signing bonuses. Some districts are paying for the move of certified teachers from out of state and beyond.
Calling up us ol certified dinosaurs to fill in is actually a blessing. Nothing beats experience and they are use to low pay and disrespect from the DOE in Pierre. They do it for the children.
Most of those open positions end up being filled by J1 Visa holders out of the Philippines… Who are often pushed around by their hosting district…