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Amendment R: Oversight of Vo-Techs

The South Dakota Legislature passed House Joint Resolution 1003 in 2015 to place Amendment R on the 2016 ballot. Amendment R would change Article 14, Section 3 of the South Dakota Constitution to allow the Legislature to clarify who is in charge of South Dakota’s post-secondary vo-tech schools.

Key Provision:

  1. Currently, the Board of Regents manages our public universities, while vo-techs are run by local school boards. Yet Article 14, Section 3 leaves open the possibility that the Regents may be responsible for the vo-techs. Amendment R clarifies that the vo-techs shall be governed separately from the Regental system by a mechanism specified by the Legislature.

Full Text: Amendment R, “An amendment to Article XIV of the Constitution of the State of South Dakota, relating to the authority of the Board of Regents.”

That Article XIV, section 3 of the Constitution of the State of South Dakota, be amended to read as follows:

§ 3. The state university, the agriculture college, the school of mines and technology, the normal schools, a school for the deaf, a school for the blind, and all other educational institutions that may be sustained either wholly or in part by the state and that offer academic or professional degrees of associate of arts, associate of sciences, baccalaureate or greater, shall be under the control of a board of five members appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the senate under such rules and restrictions as the Legislature shall provide. The Legislature may increase the number of members to nine. Postsecondary technical education institutes that offer career and technical associate of applied science degrees and certificates or their successor equivalents and that are funded wholly or in part by the state shall be separately governed as determined by the Legislature.

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