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pay to stay competitive, but number of people wanting to serve in that capacity is shrinking.”

All teaching positions in the Spearfish School District were filled for the 2022-23 school year.

“However, we were unable to fill at least eight of our para-professional positions and always seemed to be down a custodian or two during different parts of the year,” Easton said.

One other important factor to consider occurred to Easton when he recently attended the Black Hills State University (BHSU) teacher fair.

“I saw booths from school districts from Alaska, Nevada, Wyoming, North Dakota, Nebraska, Arizona, Montana, and of course South Dakota,” he said. “When the out-ofstate districts all list a higher starting salary than in state districts, it’s hard to keep these young professionals in our state.”

Lead-Deadwood School District

Lead-Deadwood School District Superintendent Dr. Erik Person said he would attribute the decline to a couple of different things.

“One is an overall shortage in our labor market. The school district employs people other than teachers … and it’s hard to get help anywhere,

That’s one thing,” Person said. “The second thing, I think, specifically to education, is the amount of education required, compared to the salaries. And this isn’t a new problem. Teaching jobs, I mean, it’s a good living and they’re good jobs, but they’re not at the high end of your bachelor’s degree jobs out there. They’re not at the high end of your master’s degree jobs. Our salaries are just not at the top of competitive markets. When you get an already-tightened labor market, that’s exacerbated.”

Person said another challenge is the attitude toward education in today’s society.

“It’s kind of a double-edged sword,” he said. “It’s a good thing to have more parental involvement. I think transparency is a big thing in education. Parents absolutely have a right to know what we’re teaching their kids. But there has been a hostility towards education and educators that’s a growing hostility that we’ve seen for sure over the last decade. And I don’t think you can weigh one political ideology over the other … with all those things, it just doesn’t seem that appealing. A lack of respect for the profession.”

Person said to put the teacher shortage into perspective, the LeadDeadwood School District is getting applicants for teaching positions.

“But the number of applicants compared to what we used to get – and that’s in schools everywhere – the number of applicants, the stack is pretty thin,” Person said. “So that would probably speak a little bit to the quality of the applicants. It’s just a numbers game … the numbers are there, in theory, to fill the jobs, but just like any other sector out in the workforce, if you’re forced to hire whoever applies, it’s not a great situation. We’d like to have some selection.”

Person went on to say that with teaching, it’s not just finding the best candidate.

“It’s also finding the right fit for your school, your community,” he said. “You want to find the right person that’s going to fit and then your school’s going to be the right fit for them.”

Person said the culture war that is being waged in schools is disheartening to him, as well, and is taxing for those in the profession.

“I just wish we could find a way to check that at the door,” he said.

Person said that in order to mitigate the shortage, perhaps greater flexibility in alternative certifications might be a starting point.

“So if people have been out in the world, had a different career, and they wanted to transition into education, maybe some flexibility to make it not so cumbersome for those people to get into the profession, take some of that

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