I was a teacher for thirty-six years and a legislator for twelve. A perennial issue in the South Dakota Legislature is education. When I was in the Legislature (sessions 1993-2004) there was a plaque on a table in the Legislative Research Council’s Office that said, “No man’s property or person is safe while the Legislature is in session.” I don’t know if that plaque is there anymore but it’s true and so is, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
I was in the State Senate and on the Senate Education Committee in the mid 1990’s and we had a conference at Cedar Shores in Chamberlain with working educators at all levels from various districts to try and deal with the issues surrounding teacher shortages, especially in small and rural schools. As a teacher myself and a State Senator, I thought I was uniquely qualified to deal with the issue. At one of the tables, I sat and spoke with five female teachers, all single and teaching in small schools. We discussed where they saw themselves in five years. None of them said they thought they would still be teaching.
I asked if pay was the issue. They admitted that was part of it. I asked if it was because they were in a small school and so had to do “everything” in addition to teaching; was that also a factor? For example, when my wife taught in Emery (which she loved doing) she did it for half the salary she got when she became a teacher in Mitchell and in Emery, she was the entire Science Department grades 7-12 teaching all science subjects at each grade level plus she was a basketball assistant coach. No, these women said, that wasn’t the reason they saw themselves leaving teaching.
I asked if it were other compensation issues, extra-curricular pay or types of insurance coverages and copays etc., but no – that wasn’t it either. Was it discipline issues, politics with parents or administrators or the disadvantages of living in a small town – a dearth of concerts, cultural opportunities, limited retail choices etc.? (Remember this was before the Internet, Amazon and all the rest.) No, that wasn’t it either.
Then what in the world was the reason they would leave teaching within the next five years!?! Their answer, “We’re single and there are no eligible men around.” When I got back to Pierre and reported to my colleagues I (half) jokingly recommended we set up a match-maker program for small school teachers as a recruitment and retention tool.
Teaching is a wonderful vocation but a terrible job. My schedule varied a bit over the years. In the early years of my career, I taught Geography, Ancient World History, Modern World History, American History from 1750-1919 and American History from 1920 to the present, coached Boys and Girls Tennis and Debate. In the middle of my career, I taught Critical Issues and the two American History courses (my colleagues graciously lightened my load during my years in the SD legislature) directed plays and musicals. By the end of my career, I still taught the two American History classes as well as Critical Issues, Ancient World History, Civics and Advanced Placement Government while still directing plays and musicals.
My day started at Mitchell High School by 7:30am and didn’t end until 6pm, mainly because of the activities I coached and directed. Once I got home, I had between one and four hours of “homework”, depending on what went on in my various classes that day. When I was coaching Tennis and Debate, there were afternoon and weekend events to supervise. When I was directing plays, musicals and emceeing Show Choir events there were evening performances to attend. Then, throughout my career, there were parent-teacher conferences to conduct and athletic events to monitor as well as school dances to chaperone.
A teacher often has an unresponsive or unsupportive administration to deal with, difficult and frustrated parents to placate and classroom discipline issues caused by students for various reasons. Teachers often spend their own money on classroom materials (bulletin boards for example) or supplies and on the road when carrying out coaching duties.
Class size is another issue. I always laughed when Dr. Graves was quoted in the Daily Republic saying that the Mitchell school system was “fully staffed”. I knew full well, from working in the district, that we were “fully staffed” because class choices for students had been eliminated because the required teacher(s) couldn’t be hired to teach those courses or that we were “fully staffed” because other teachers absorbed the class load of a departing teacher. I know of a teacher in the Mitchell school district who has a class of 37, right now in school year 2023-2024, for these very reasons.
Money is nice and money helps but if class sizes are too big which often results in classroom discipline issues and if school administrators are unsupportive, no amount of money is enough. Life is too short.
Zip Recruiter reports that the average teacher salary in South Dakota is $50, 315 placing the State at 48th just ahead of West Virginia and Mississippi. Now full disclosure, because South Dakota doesn’t have a personal income tax, net disposable income for teachers puts them somewhat higher than 48th place, but not by much. Again, according to Zip Recruiter, the average salary for a School Superintendent in South Dakota is $109, 873 which puts Superintendents in the top ten of the nation for compensation at #9. Elementary and High School Principals also rank 9th in the nation for administrator salaries. The dichotomy between teacher and administrative salaries is another point that sticks in the craw of rank and file educators. Administrators take care of their own and then lament the dearth of teachers available for hire, all the while never seeming to recognize how the gulf in total compensation (administrators often get other perks like superior or completely paid insurance, as an example) factors in teacher recruitment.
Teaching is not an easy gig. I’ve seen more than one first year teacher pack it in at the end of the school year and say, “That’s it” and then move on to other things. I’ve seen many a teacher with good years left in them, I like to think I was one of them, who quit or retired early because “enough is enough”. In my case, it had nothing to do with the kids and the classroom, but the rest of the administrivia male bovine excrement was just too much to bear any longer.
Teachers often spend more time with other people’s children than their own. It’s the nature of the job but it gets harder and harder to convince would be educators to put other families’ welfare before their own.
People also aren’t willing to put in the long hours required to be a good teacher any longer, not for the compensation (salary for the classroom, payment for extra duties and the often inferior insurance package) that South Dakota school districts are offering. Honestly, with what higher education costs these days, a teaching certificate is not the best return on investment when it comes to a college degree. Since Covid, instruction has gotten tougher with increased student absenteeism and the scandal of low attainment and no achievement that online “learning” has been revealed to be. Teachers are expected to be perfect, politically correct and tolerant of abuse – personal and otherwise – all of the time. In addition, a teacher has to constantly take college credit courses themselves, for which the individual teacher pays for out of their own pocket, in order to keep their job. It’s no wonder that States in general and South Dakota in particular are having a hard time recruiting people into the profession.
I’ve always hated the old saying, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” The high expectations for teachers, combined with the low pay for the profession (comparatively speaking) and the low esteem that teachers are held in as well as the super charged political atmosphere that surrounds curriculum and the classroom these days, all conspire to drive people from the profession and keep new people from considering entering it.
Money is an issue. That’s a fact. However, it’s not the only issue. Even if the salary question could be resolved by a wave of the legislative wand tomorrow, the recruitment and retention of teachers would remain a serious problem in South Dakota because of all the other sundry and side issues that even more money doesn’t remove.
I had a long and rewarding career in education. However, I would never even consider becoming a teacher today given the conditions, class sizes, lack of respect, school violence and politicization (especially in the Social Studies and American History) of the classroom. I wish the best of luck to those dedicated souls brave and crazy enough to embark on a career in education these days.