LA BOARD SIGNS RESOLUTION OPPOSING VOUCHERS

    In other board action taken Monday by the Langford Area Board of Education, the group unanimously approved the signing of a resolution opposing Governor Noem’s Education Savings Account proposal. The resolution reads as follows:
    WHEREAS South Dakota public schools are a cornerstone of the state and the pride of their communities, welcoming all children, educating and feeding them, connecting them with friends and mentors and helping shape their future while preparing them to be the next generation of our state’s workforce; 
    WHEREAS the proposed Education Savings Account (ESA) – for the 2025 legislative session – is simply a different title for a school voucher program;
    WHEREAS research indicates school voucher programs consistently fail to improve academic outcomes;
    WHEREAS the proposed program will be implemented by using millions in public taxpayer dollars to fund non-public schools that may pick and choose who they admit while also charging tuition and raising millions of dollars in scholarship funds or to fund homeschool programs with no transparency or accountability measures to prove success similar to those required of public schools;
    WHEREAS the state budget, which provides the funding increase for public education, faces constraints due to stagnant revenue collections and as a result, the proposed increase in state aid for public schools is less than the level of inflation;
    WHEREAS with lower than expected revenue collections creating a lean state budget the introduction of a new, ongoing funding system for a school voucher program will eventually lead to an unbalanced state budget or a decrease in funding for public education;
    WHEREAS the school voucher program will not stop at the initial amount, as the intention to grow school voucher funding has already been stated even before it has been adopted;
    WHEREAS the school voucher program’s planned and inevitable growth will be damaging to the future of our public school system, students and communities;
    WHEREAS we, as School Board members, insist our legislators oppose the proposed school voucher program because of the foreseeable detrimental impact it will have on South Dakota’s public school system at the expense of our students;
    NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, we, the Langford Area School Board, oppose the proposed school voucher program for the 2025 legislative session.