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preschool children, SD leads the nation in the percentage of women working outside the home.  No issue is more important to the women of our state than education.  Both as parents and as professional educators, women are among the strongest advocates for adequate school funding.
• SD Women make up 73% of the workforce of pre- k through secondary educators in our state.  We know that our teachers are dead last in salaries compared to other states and the gap continues to increase.  In 2013, South Dakota ranked last in average teacher salary by a thirty percent margin.  In other words, we could give SD teachers a 30% raise and they would still be in last place.  S.D. Budget and Policy Project Director Joy Smolinsky told members of the Joint Appropriations committee earlier in session that teacher's salary today has "virtually the same" purchasing power as it did in 1969.  This is unacceptable!  This decades old problem has now reached a crisis point as educators, both young and experienced, make choices to leave the state or the profession. 
• ASBSD (Associated School Boards of SD) and SASD (School Administrators of South Dakota) received the results of a survey which was completed by Dr. Mark Baron of Nebraska.  The purpose of the survey was to determine the perceptions of superintendents regarding the adequacy of available teacher candidates in the state.
• More than 75% of respondents considered the teacher applicant pool to inadequate or very inadequate and 73% of superintendents said they believe low salary was an important reason why teachers leave.
• I will continue to advocate for our rural schools.  Today we had an important bill in Senate Taxation that would allow schools to use the pension fund to pay for health insurance.  Health insurance costs have continued to rise and sometimes schools have to choose between giving our teachers raises or providing them with adequate health insurance.  If we had more flexibility with this fund then we might be able to do more.  The taxation committee killed it with a 5-2 vote. I was the prime sponsor in the Senate on this bill.  We continue to push for the 3.8% increase on the per student allocation to get us back to where we were five years ago.
• We had a lot of area landowners in the Senate on Tuesday to oppose SB 169 which was the high water/meandering/non-meandering water bill.  With the mounting opposition to this bill the sponsor asked to table the bill.  Landowners want control over their lands and they ask that those sportsmen and women who use the water resources to ask for permission and to be courteous in terms of where they park their vehicles and in how they use the areas. 
• We have had a number of schools visit the Capital so far this session as they

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