District lets go 3 teachers

BROOKINGS — During the April 13 meeting, the Brookings School Board voted unanimously to approve a reduction in force for the 2026-27 school year.

Three teachers are impacted — Middle School teacher Reid Pierzinski, Medary kindergarten teacher Paige Miller and Hillcrest Art Teacher Cassidy Hunt. All three will be receiving “notices of nonrenewal” from the district.

The South Dakota state legislature approved a 1.4 percent funding increase for schools next year. The Brookings district alone faces rising health insurance costs of around $140 thousand, increasing property and liability insurance costs of around $85 thousand and an estimated extra $90 thousand in rising utility costs next year.

“I think what people don’t always understand is that 1.4 percent for school districts, that goes to the teacher-to-student ratio target — the target teacher formula — and then the overhead,” Brookings Superintendent Summer Schultz said.

“Those are the only two ways that school districts bring in revenue. I think there’s this idea that no matter what we do, somehow we can make more money or that sort of thing. It doesn’t work that way. There is a certain target teacher amount, and we get a certain amount of money for the number of students we have. That number grows by 1.4 percent.”
Brookings also has falling enrollment.

Schultz said 270 seniors are graduating this year and an estimated 230 kindergarteners are coming in.

“Schools are only funded based on the number of students they have to a target teacher matrix,” she said. “It’s a one-to-fifteen for our level. So you take how many students you have in the fall count — what we showed you earlier — you divide that by fifteen. That’s the number — and there’s some overhead — but the reality is, the state funds us for the number of teachers that they in their formula say are needed to adequately serve that number of students. There is not ways — without having general fund opt-outs, that sort of thing. That is how schools are funded.”

She said before looking at any reduction in force, the district sought cost savings in the recent changes made to the elementary school boundaries.

“For three, four months (we) worked on boundary work, boundary revisions,” Schultz said. “And we went through the boundary staffing and scheduling with a fine-tooth comb, because you cannot, you shouldn’t do boundary reconfiguration without making it as efficient as you can that first year.”

She said the district is also making efficiencies in how they schedule existing staff within the middle school.

“The middle school staff had double that (teacher) prep time than the other buildings,” she said. “They also were all having study hall and many of them — the core teachers — are also having homeroom. And so when it came time — when I looked at the high school schedule — there’s additions that need to be made in the high school schedule. I can’t make them — let alone pay our current staff what I think we should be bringing in — when we know our staff is up against inflation and all the things. If we aren’t efficient, if we’re allowing staff members to teach their core subjects half the day, I can’t justify that.”

Schultz stressed that no district programs are being cut and said at the end of the day the Brookings School District will have a balanced budget.