SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – With less than a month before most schools in South Dakota start, there are still 353 teacher openings across the state, which is almost 100 more openings than last year.
According to the Associated School Board of South Dakota, there are 353 teacher positions open as of July 2024. In 2023, there were 256 openings during July and in 2022, that number was 225 and 174 in 2021. The current openings include teachers, but also tech directors, librarians, paraprofessionals and support staff.
Rob Monson, the executive director for School Administrators of South Dakota, said the increase in openings over the years is not a surprise.
”We have our population of teachers aging and then retiring,” Monson said. “We know that the pipelines have not been as full as they could be at the universities to fill those open positions, so it really doesn’t come as any surprise.”
Monson also said the need for teachers is in both rural and urban communities.
According to the Sioux Falls School District job listing page, there are nine teacher openings, five of which are English language development teachers. The district also has six special education teacher positions open, including Ben Reifel, Whittier Middle and Cleveland Elementary.
Rapid City School District has six teaching positions open, including middle school math and social studies and high school math, art and at-risk credit recovery.
Eagle Butte School District, which has only 362 students, currently has four openings including a high school CTE teacher, middle school computer teacher and an elementary school teacher and counselor.
Monson was a South Dakota principal 15 years ago and he said at that time, he’d have 30 applications for an elementary teaching position.
“I’m hearing anecdotally now that some districts are seeing maybe four or five total applications for a position like that,” he said.
Due to the lack of applicants, Monson said it most likely won’t be possible to fill all 353 positions before school starts in August, but administrators around the state are working to fill the classrooms.
“Every single administrator is doing everything they can to find someone of quality to put into those positions,” Monson said. “At the end of the day, they may end up finding just a person to fill a position, either on a long term substitute basis or they may do an ‘authority to act’ or some other process to get someone in a classroom in front of kids.”
