Title: Teachers in South Dakota Will Finally Get a Raise
Headings: Teachers in South Dakota Will Finally Get a Raise
Teachers in South Dakota Will Finally Get a Raise
Teachers’ pay in South Dakota had been incredibly low.
Do You Know What You're Worth?
The state’s schools and students suffered as a result of these low salaries.
Now, teachers in South Dakota are about to get a significant raise.
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Content: The state’s schools and students suffered as a result of these low salaries. Low teacher pay comes with a price, and, unfortunately, it’s often students who end up paying it. Trained educators in South Dakota found they could relocate to another region, or simply commute over the border to another state, and make as much as $10,000 more per year. It’s easy to understand why they’d make that choice. “When student teachers from Black Hills State University can start out making $8000 more than me in Wyoming, and I have a Master’s degree and 20 years of experience, I tell them to go for it,” Shelley Mikkelson, who was named the South Dakota Education Association’s 2016 Teacher of Excellence, told the Butte County Post. There are many ways in which low pay hurts the quality of education schools can provide. If teachers struggle to make ends meet, they might need to take on second or even third jobs, which takes away from the time and energy they are able to invest in the classroom. In South Dakota, about 25 percent of teachers took on second jobs in recent years. South Dakota ended up facing a serious problem with teacher shortages as a result of the low pay. The teacher shortage problem in South Dakota had become chronic and severe, especially in some of the most rural parts of the state.