Individuals from the Highmore-Harrold, Miller and Smee school districts are among those that will graduate from South Dakota’s Teacher Apprenticeship Pathway (TAP) program this weekend (May 10, 2025) at Dakota State University or Northern State University.
The new teachers combined their years of work experience as school paraprofessionals with an education opportunity, to put them on the path to becoming full-fledged teachers.
Labor and Regulation Secretary Marcia Hultman says this pathway allows individuals to stay in their home communities with their current students, plus they earn a paycheck throughout their coursework. As a former teacher, she says she’s glad to see the typical training model expand to accommodate people who take a nontraditional path toward becoming a fully certified teacher.
Through the program, participants earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary, secondary or special education while they continued to work as a paraprofessional in their school. NSU and DSU offered the necessary coursework over a two-year period, culminating in a student-teaching experience and resulting in the completion of a bachelor’s degree in education. All coursework was offered virtually at convenient times, so participants were able to work while enrolled. School districts provided a local mentor to support the apprentices throughout the process, and the universities provided mentors as well.
Those who applied for the 3rd cohort of TAP will be notified during the first two weeks of June. Their classes will start this fall.
The TAP program is a joint effort between the state Department of Education, the state Department of Labor and Regulation, DSU and NSU to address the teacher shortage in South Dakota.
School districts where the TAP graduates worked as paraprofessionals:
Aberdeen School District
Bridgewater-Emery School District
Brookings School District
Castlewood School District
Chester School District
Custer School District
Dell Rapids School District
Flandreau School District
Florence School District
Freeman School District
Harrisburg School District
Highmore-Harrold School District
Lemmon School District
Lennox School District
Madison School District
McCook Central School District
Miller School District
Mitchell School District
Mount Vernon School District
New Underwood School District
Oglala Lakota County School
Parker School District
Parkston School District
Rapid City Area Schools
Sanborn Central School District
Sioux Falls School District
Sioux Falls Christian School
Sioux Valley School District
Smee School District
Wagner School District
Warner School District
Watertown School District
Waubay School District
West Central School District
White Lake School District
Willow Lake School District
Woonsocket School District
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