A bill to establish the South Dakota Board of Technical Education and revise certain provisions regarding career and technical education and postsecondary technical institutes passed the Senate on Tuesday and now heads to the House.
Senate Bill 65 comes out of the November passage of Amendment R, a ballot initiative that changed the governance of the state’s four tech schools. The tech schools — Southeast Technical Institute in Sioux Falls, Mitchell Technical Institute, Lake Area Technical Institute in Watertown and Western Dakota Tech in Rapid City — are currently governed by local school boards, but Amendment R allows the tech schools to be run independently, supervised by a new nine-member governing board to be appointed by the state Legislature.
SDAHO supports the measure, which passed 33-0.
An amendment offered on the floor by Sen. Stace Nelson, R-Fulton, to make the board positions elected instead of appointed failed.
