Competition for teachers
May 16th, 2007 by 
colson
For some time the Brandon Valley school district has had a higher starting salary for teachers than Sioux Falls, based, in part, on the need to compete with Sioux Falls for qualified teachers.
But with the completion of the most recent negotiations in Sioux Falls the beginning salary there will be nearly $1,500 more a year.
It will be interesting to see if that makes it harder for Brandon Valley to attract new teachers to the district.
Posted in Uncategorized | 
May 16th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Considering the pathetic pay that the rest of the state offers, it’s not going to be hard to find decent South Dakota people. However, finding candidates from out of state will continue to be an issue.
There will always be people who have ties to SD that want to stay. At least those people have the financial ability to stay if they want to.
Competition for jobs in Sioux Falls and the larger metro area has always been stiff. But what happens is that people work in Brandon or Harrisburg or Sioux Falls for a few years, get some experiences, and then move on for better jobs with better pay.
Turnover is a better indicator of the health of a employer than many other things. Employees are the first to know when things are hitting the fan. I don’t know what the turnover as a percentage is in Sioux Falls, so I can’t really comment on that.
May 17th, 2007 at 10:56 am
The new Sioux Falls contract will allow that them to get competitive with US and some other ESD schools.
We are very fortunate to get many job applicants for most of our openings. This Spring we had over 100 applications for elementary teacher positions.
Recently, the board was able to offer a pay increase that was very well recieved by the WHOLE staff of BVSD. This raise will compensate all staff not just the newly hired teachers.
One of the reason SF had to play catch up was because they had not raised the starting level very much over the last few years. The BVSD contract has been raising the starting salary for new teachers for quite some time.
I personally think we are going to be able to attract high quality teachers to this district for the forseeable future. The are many reasons why but here are a few :
Current high quality staff
High state test scores
Proximity to Sioux Falls
Involvement of parents
District financial position
Support from TAXPAYERS and COMMUNITY
Lastly, we (community) will demand a top tier school district because we are BRANDON VALLEY !! Go Lynx!!