State legislators are considering a bill that establishes a critical teaching needs scholarship program. South Dakota currently has the Dakota Corps scholarship, which is meant to entice graduating high school students into critically needed fields in South Dakota and to remain in the state for a number of years following college graduation. The Dakota Corps program has four teaching fields listed under critical needs. Senator Tim Rave is the Senate Bill 233’s primary sponsor. He says South Dakota needs this new scholarship program because there are major teacher shortages across the state.
“In Fiscal Year 2012, we graduated 482 students with teaching degrees. We have 532 job openings, and this is where I believe this bill will make a difference. We graduated 19 students that had a degree in science, and that included bio and chem and general science. We had 51 job openings last year in science—19 graduates, 51 openings; math, same deal, 24 graduates, 52 openings; and one more, English, 36 graduates, 74 openings. That was just last year, Fiscal Year ’12. I suspect many of those have been open year after year after year,” Rave says.
Under the scholarship program created in Senate Bill 233, eligible students must be enrolled in an elementary or secondary education program at a participating South Dakota college and preparing to work in a critical need teaching area. Although they are both similar in requirements, the critical teaching needs scholarship is different than the Dakota Corps program because it is given while in college. Members of the House Education Committee referred the bill to Appropriations.
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