Chairman’s Note: Meet Linda Mallory. She’s a 10th-year math and science teacher in Spearfish. She still has $17,000 in debt from graduate school and has taken a second job as a hotel desk clerk. In the amended version of Governor Daugaard’s education bill, Linda would make $5,000 a year less than a a first-year math or science teacher in her district would earn. What happens then? “To me, that is a slap in the face,” Linda said. “For the first time in my career, I am considering leaving teaching or at least leaving a job that I love in a community that I love where I teach students that I love.”
