In this Feb. 4, 2016, photo, teacher Jessica Ries passes out writing assessment tests to her fourth-grade students at Hayward Elementary School in Sioux Falls, S.D. (AP Photo/Dirk Lammers)

UPDATE: Both the Sioux Falls Stampede and CU Mortgage Direct apologized for holding the “Dash for Cash” event and said they will provide an additional $15,500 for Sioux Falls area teachers.

“Although our intent was to provide a positive and fun experience for teachers, we can see how it appears to be degrading and insulting towards the participating teachers and the teaching profession as a whole,” the joint statement stated. “We deeply regret and apologize to all teachers for any embarrassment this may have caused.”

ORIGINAL: Annie Todd, a breaking news reporter for the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, likely thought she was reporting on a feel-good story when she covered a charity event for teachers at a local hockey game. She likely didn’t anticipate the story going viral and becoming a symbol of dehumanizing teachers in a state that’s one of the worst in the nation for teacher pay.

During an intermission for a Sioux Falls Stampede junior ice hockey game on Saturday, 10 local Sioux Falls, S.Dak. teachers competed against each other in a “Dash for Cash.” The goal was for the teachers to stuff as many single dollar bills into their shirts as they could in the span of just under five minutes. The money they collected, totaling a combined $5,000, was intended to go to funding out-of-pocket expenses for the teachers’ classrooms and schools.

Todd’s video of the event went viral on Twitter; the video currently has almost 13 million views and almost five thousand quote tweets on the platform. Many of those offering commentary were quick to call the event “evil,” while others pointed out the dystopian nature of it being treated as a “good news” story by many. And there were plenty of comparisons to Netflix’s “Squid Game.”

The $5,000 came from CU Mortgage Direct, a local mortgage lender. Ryan Knudson, the Director of Business Development and Marketing for CU Mortgage Direct, told the Argus Leader the “Dash for Cash” was a tribute for the Sioux Falls teachers.

“With everything that has gone on for the last couple of years with teachers and everything, we thought it was an awesome group thing to do for the teachers,” Knudson told the Leader. “The teachers in this area, and any teacher, they deserve whatever the heck they get.”

But South Dakota teachers and educators have been struggling even before the COVID-19 pandemic. In Feb. 2020, Harrisburg High School teachers held a walkout over the lack of education funding by the state, upset by what they saw as lapsed promises.

Despite some progress, a recent National Education Association report showed that South Dakota is 50th in the country out of 51 (Washington, D.C. is included) in terms of average teacher salary. And even with a sales tax hike for public school funding and then-Gov. Dennis Dauggard creating a Blue Ribbon Task Force in 2016 to focus on increasing South Dakota teacher salaries, those average salaries are well below targets set by the state. Last week, Gov. Kristi Noem proposed a 6% wage increase for all state workers, including teachers.

Some members of South Dakota’s Teacher Compensation Review Board dismiss the NEA’s low rankings for South Dakota. Those members cite interstate competition, the lower salaries of younger teachers and pandemic-related staff shortages as reasons why the state ranks so low.

One task force member, Republican Rep. Lana Greenfield, advised teachers wanting higher salaries to pay to earn a master’s degree. For reference, completing most education master’s degrees at the University of South Dakota, the state’s largest public university, would cost almost $12,000 in tuition and mandatory fees for 30 credit hours.

The state’s teachers union, the South Dakota Education Association, criticized the “Dash for Cash” in a statement on Facebook.

“As a state, we shouldn’t be forcing teachers to crawl around on an ice rink to get the money they need to fund their classrooms,” SDEA President Loren Paul said. “We need to do better for our educators, but, more importantly, we must do better for our students.”