This story is reported by South Dakota News Watch , a non-profit news organization. Find more in-depth reporting at www.sdnewswatch.org .
RAPID CITY, S.D. (SDNW) — Teacher pay has risen in South Dakota, but an analysis shows educators are losing purchasing power at an even greater rate.
Elementary school teacher Sarah Gross has seen the toll that low teacher salaries and minimal pay raises can take on teachers, schools and public education in general.
In recent years, she has watched as a number of colleagues have left the teaching field and taken their talent, knowledge and experience with them.
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At South Park Elementary School in Rapid City, where Gross now teaches, three veteran teachers left the district in the past two years for higher pay and better benefits in the Douglas School District, a high-pay district in nearby Box Elder that serves families from Ellsworth Air Force Base.
“When we train up our new people, and then we lose them to other places, whether it be Douglas or Wyoming or some other state, we lose that person as well as our investment in them and their institutional knowledge and experience,” Gross said.