by Heath Larson

Executive Director

The 100th legislative session came to a close on Thursday, March 13. While this session had a focus on prisons, property taxes, and the pipeline, we experienced a significant number of bills that were, in most cases, unfriendly to public K-12 schools with many bills looking to impede local control of school districts.

We were able to take care of many bills. Several did pass that you will need to be aware of moving forward.

We spent a significant amount of time and effort working on the floors of the Senate and House of Representatives due to many bills being passed out of committee.

As advertised, the budget was lean this year due to a couple factors including lower than projected revenue collections. The funding increase for K-12 landed on what was in the governor’s budget proposal at 1.25 percent, which is $12.8 million in new funding for public schools.

I want to thank you for your engagement and positive efforts this session through alerts we sent out and communications with your local legislators including Cracker Barrel attendance supporting K-12 public education.

The education lobbyists worked collaboratively in our advocacy for all of our schools. I want to give a shout out to all of them as well for their excellent work this session.

ASBSD will be sharing more detailed information soon regarding any new bills passed. If interested, our Billtracker link is updated and can be reviewed here: https://asbsd.org/services/billtracker-2/.

Thank you for sharing and celebrating your school district successes. We need to continue to make sure the positive happenings are being shared and celebrated with all stakeholders.

by Tyler Pickner

Director of Communications

After 37 legislative days, which spanned more than two months, the 100th South Dakota legislative session came to an end on Thursday (3/13), almost thankfully so as this year proved to be among the – if not the most – challenging for K-12 public education in quite some time.

Billtracker’s numbers back that sentiment up as this year ASBSD opposed 44 bills – the highest ever in 11-years of our system by 12 bills. Of that record number, we were able to kill most of the detrimental bills by killing nearly 90 percent of those pieces we opposed in 2025.

This year, we tracked 91 total pieces of legislation and supported just 8 proposals, which included four commemorations celebrating board members & administrators. This is the only time in Billtracker history we’ve seen single digit bills we were able to support.

Seven of the eight pieces of legislation ASBSD supported were successful in the end. That’s a pretty good ratio of success considering only one-third of the 91 total bills we tracked were passed in 2025.

All told – whether supporting or opposing – ASBSD had an 87 percent success rate in getting bills successfully across the line or killed in the legislative process.

ASBSD will provide more detailed information on those bills that were signed into law and how they will affect your district, including the average teacher compensation and minimum teacher salary you need to meet for next school year, in the coming weeks, so keep a lookout for that information.

Thank you for your dedicated advocacy work this session. We couldn’t do it without our members sharing our messages and more with their legislators.

The premier learning event for South Dakota school board members and administrators is seeking people to share their expertise and knowledge with the large contingent of school leaders who will attend the 2025 ASBSD-SASD Convention.

The ASBSD-SASD Convention is scheduled to be held at the Sioux Falls Convention Center on Thursday and Friday, August 7-8.

Download the Breakout Session proposal form here and submit it by Friday, April 11 to kara.brandlee@sasd.org.

ASBSD and SASD will review submitted proposals and contact the applicant(s) of proposals at a date in the future.

If you have questions, about breakout session proposals or Convention, please contact Kara Brandlee with SASD at kara.brandlee@sasd.org.

We have outstanding educational leaders in South Dakota.

Please join the South Dakota School Superintendent Association in celebrating our public school superintendents by submitting nominations for the following awards:

Outstanding Superintendent of the Year

The SDSSA Executive Board honors an “Outstanding Superintendent of the Year” Award to honor a superintendent who has made significant contributions to Leadership for Learning, Communication, Professionalism, and Community Involvement.

Download the nomination form here.

Community Leader of the Year

The SDSSA Executive Board has instituted a “Community Leader” Award to honor a superintendent who has made an investment in his/her community above and beyond the scope of the school district’s responsibilities.

Download the nomination form here.

Innovator of the Year

The SDSSA Executive Board has instituted an “Innovator of the Year” Award to honor a superintendent who has exhibited exemplary leadership ability in creating new programs or concepts that have a positive impact on staff development, recruitment, or retention, or creating new programming that directly impacts student learning, student achievement, or student educational experiences.

Download the nomination form here.

Rookie of the Year

The SDSSA Executive Board has instituted a “Rookie of the Year” Award to honor a superintendent in their first three years in the profession who has exhibited exemplary leadership ability in making a difference in their school district through new programs or concepts that have a positive impact on the dynamics of the district.

Download the nomination form here.

Distinguished Service Award

The SDSSA Executive Committee has instituted a Distinguished Service Award to honor retired or retiring superintendents who have exhibited exemplary leadership ability and have enhanced the school's superintendency in South Dakota.

Download the nomination form here.

All individuals nominated for Outstanding Superintendent will be automatically nominated for Community Leader and Innovator of the Year. Individuals may submit specific nominations for Innovator and Community Leader of the Year.

Please complete the components associated with the nomination. All nominations should include the basic data and overview sheet.

Nominations are due by March 28.