How is the state of South Dakota working as a whole to end the teacher shortage?

Editor's note: This is the fourth article in five-part series, exploring South Dakota’s teacher shortage and the myriad of ways school districts, colleges and the state are attempting to solve that teacher shortage.

Besides area school districts and colleges, South Dakota as a whole is working on various strategies to address the teacher shortage for years to come.

South Dakota as a whole has seen an increase of 200 teacher job postings over the last five years, something experts say is driven by pay, politics and the pandemic, for example.

Solutions from the South Dakota Department of Education include a new marketing campaign, a new state website with job postings and student-teacher permits.

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That's in addition to the myriad other strategies being taken by school districts and colleges at this time. Sioux Falls School District human resources director Becky Dorman has said different strategies will be effective in different years.

The DOE also boasts the teacher apprenticeship pathway pilots and its state mentoring program as solutions to the shortage, discussed in other parts of this Argus Leader series.

Marketing the teaching profession

You may have recently seen some ads on your TV screens, websites, YouTube videos or on billboards promoting the teaching profession and leading you to sdteach.org.

That’s all part of a new marketing campaign by the DOE aimed at attracting new people — young people or those looking for a different career, from in-state or out-of-state — to the teaching profession.

The ad series shares stories from current South Dakota teachers and focuses on the rewards of the profession, where you can “Make a Future Making Futures,” the ads state. The state contracted with Epicosity to create the campaign for $410,550.

The website associated with the campaign also links to a job website, teachinsd.com, with all the teacher and administrator career postings across the state. The campaign has delivered more than seven million impressions since it started in August, according to the DOE.

It's unknown how many of those impressions have turned into direct hires, as districts are responsible for hiring decisions and the DOE doesn't have that information, but the DOE will be watching certification application numbers and vacancy numbers at pivotal points of the year to understand how the campaign and other efforts are impacting the educator pipeline in South Dakota, public information specialist Nancy Van Der Weide said.

DOE rule change allowed for student-teacher permits

Another of the DOE’s strategies to patch the shortage is student-teacher permits, which allows college students who are toward the end of their education and are student-teaching in classrooms to be hired on by their districts. Forty-four people have applied for these permits since July 1 when the rule change took effect, according to the DOE.

The permits came about thanks to a recent administrative rule change at the DOE. The change allows schools to pay student-teachers, who otherwise aren’t paid for their student-teaching experience, which ultimately means districts can remain competitive with neighboring states.

More: Could another change in South Dakota's school funding formula be coming?

The Sioux Falls School District, the state's largest district, has 52 student-teachers from 10 different universities this year, two of whom were hired on with permission from their university and the DOE to grant a permit, district human resources director Becky Dorman said in an Aug. 28 school board work session.

“That’s been great to be able to dive in and utilize that pathway immediately,” Dorman said. “Of course, our hope is that they finish their student-teaching, they finish up their degree and they stay on with us. That’s our greatest hope.”

Student-teachers who are going to teach in “shortage areas” — special education, high school math or science, middle school math or science, or fine arts — get $1,000 stipends when they teach in Sioux Falls, and then get $2,000 hiring bonuses when they sign a contract with the district, too, Dorman said.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: How the SDDOE is working to fix South Dakota's teacher shortage