“Back when I was goin’ to school
I never learned a thing
All I did was daydream
Waitin’ for the bell to ring”
“I Love You Period” — Dan Baird

One of the founding members of The Georgia Satellites, Dan Baird was an innovator in music, taking country music in the 1980s to an infusion with rock styling that is still felt across the genre today.

The Georgia Satellites had a strong run in the back half of the 1980s, reaching their peak with “Keep Your Hands to Yourself,” which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In 1990, Baird left the group to pursue a solo career, and he spent two years writing music before releasing 1992’s “Love Songs for the Hearing Impaired.”

The record had a lot of Baird’s sense of humor in the lyrics, though “I Love You Period” was the longest-charting song of the record, though another song reached a higher peak level in the charts.

The lyrics discuss a boy who struggled to focus in school, especially due to an interest in an attractive teacher. He thought he would write a note to his interest, and the teacher came back with a grammar lesson on his note of affection, leading to the chorus lyrics of the tune.

While I’m sure some of our esteemed educators have taken the time to help a student with their love letter composition, certainly there is plenty more that our area educators do every single day to aid students in the classroom - never mind the community as a whole.

Huron School District currently has roughly 2,900 students.

Nearly 200 people are employed in roles that are termed “teachers,” according to the National Center for Education Statistics, with another 150 to 200+ other staff, including administrative staff, paraeducators, school counselors, etc.

With 450-500 employees in the Huron School District alone, it is quite feasible that the Plainsman coverage area encapsulates more than 1,000 employees of education in our communities.

Today is World Teacher’s Day, and far too often, days like today get glossed over while we have messages from politicians to recognize National Left-Handed Secretary’s Day. (Not that our left-handed administrative assistants shouldn’t receive recognition, mind you!)

Recently, South Dakota Searchlight reviewed one of a handful of very interesting statistical releases from The Dakota Institute.

The release in question showed that over the past six years, South Dakota teachers have experienced a decrease in pay of 7.6%.

How is this, you may ask, when we approved big raises the past few years in Pierre for “The Big 3”, which includes educators?

The study finds that average teacher pay did increase 13.8% from 2017 to 2023. The issue is that from 2017 to 2023, the accumulative inflation rate was 21.4%, which means that teachers saw 7.6% less spending power from their salaries.

Add in the complexity of navigating through a pandemic and the recovery in classrooms post-pandemic, increased scrutiny inside the classroom and through social media of every action within the classroom, and the challenge in the Huron district of multiple different cultures blending into the school system (58.3% of all students are non-white, per NCES) has led to some level of difficulty filling jobs in the district.

Of course, this is a statewide trend, and the pay is just one portion of it. However, it’s getting to be more and more difficult and challenging just to be a teacher, yet we are paying them less.

One thing that really caught my eye in the NCES data from the Huron district is that the median income of a household with children in the Huron district is just over $86,000 while the overall Huron community median income is a hair more than $61,000.

Parents are truly the ones buoying the local economy with significant population portions that are not yet in the workforce (students) or are now retired and out of the workforce, which leads to plenty of pull of parents in many directions just to keep Huron and its surrounding communities churning.

That puts more pressure on work within the classroom to help the average student be able to grasp and apply the concepts that are taught.

It wasn’t that long ago that my dad, despite his admitted lack of expertise in the subject, sat down with me to assist with my middle school math homework. As much as anything, he helped me hone my own thinking process to accomplish the correct answer, and that’s extremely valuable.

It used to be very common that you’d hear a significant amount of scholarship recipients for community awards state that their intended college pursuits were going to be for a future career in education. Now, the nursing and medical fields seem to draw that same notoriety.

Just one goofball’s view, but I do recall that about the time I was in high school and college, nursing shortages began to be a very real issue for the state.

Private industry stepped up and funded significant college awards to encourage students to pursue careers in nursing and other medical-related fields.

Why that hasn’t really happened in the education field is a question to me. Right here in Huron, we have a very reasonable rate to further education for those who get an undergraduate degree in education, to achieve a Master’s degree through Huron Community Campus, so there’s at least some attempt locally to encourage teachers in the field to further their education.

I know that I would not be where I am today without hours upon hours invested in me by teachers, many of whom I still keep in contact with to this day, more than 25 years since I last roamed a hallway in high school.

The recognition may not come in the way it really should for those who truly impact our communities so heavily, but in this space, I’ll at least take a moment to say thank you to all teachers for what you do every day for dozens of students that you encounter.

Even if that help is with proper punctuation on notes being passed in class.