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Ten men and women in matching outfits are seen on their hands and knees in the middle of an ice rink, fighting each other for dollar bills, which they desperately stuff down their shirts and into their pockets while spectators cheer them on.
What looks and sounds like a scene out of dystopian stories like “Squid Game” or “The Hunger Games” was actually a fundraiser set during a junior hockey game last weekend. And a clip of the episode has gone viral, with many critics condemning it for dehumanizing and demeaning the people involved — who were public school teachers looking to raise money for their schools.
The 10 Sioux Falls area teachers were competing in the first-ever “Dash for Cash” fundraiser during intermission at the Sioux Falls Stampede hockey game on Saturday night, according to local paper the Argus Leader. CU Mortgage Direct donated $5,000 in single dollar bills, and the teachers were given five minutes to collect as much cash as they could, which is meant to be put toward either their classrooms or their schools.
“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,” Ryan Knudson, director of business development and marketing for CU Mortgage Direct, told the paper. “The teachers in this area, and any teacher, they deserve whatever the heck they get.”
This was the area’s first-ever “Dash for Cash” event, so perhaps the organizers didn’t realize that the optics on the well-intentioned charity stunt might not look great — especially during a year when “Squid Game” resonated so strongly with viewers in part because many people have been desperate to make ends meet throughout the pandemic. And U.S. public school teachers have been historically overworked and underpaid.
Many people who viewed the video online complained that it was in poor taste, leading the clip to go viral on Twitter
TWTR,
and Reddit throughout Monday. One 13-second clip in particular posted by podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen had been viewed about 15 million times by late Monday afternoon.
“It’s bad enough teachers have to beg for the most basic class resources or buy them with their own money, but to have them be humiliated like this for ‘fun’ is sickening,” tweeted one viewer.
And there were plenty of comparisons to the Netflix
NFLX,
hit “Squid Game,” which featured desperate men and women playing deadly schoolyard games for the chance to win roughly $38 million in cash to get out of debt.
The Sioux Falls Stampede hockey team later apologized for the Dash for Cash event: “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 team and the mortgage company that put up the $5,000 will also donate another $500 to each of the participating teachers, the Argus Leader reported, as well as $500 to the other 21 teachers who had applied to the event. So a total of $15,500 will be donated to area teachers.
And they could certainly use it. South Dakotan teachers earned $49,000 on average in 2020, making it the state with the second lowest-paid teachers in the country.
And an op-ed in the Argus Leader following the “Dash for Cash” event noted that the spectacle “provided a strong metaphor for chronic education underfunding, teacher pay.”
“Even though the teachers took the unique opportunity to make some dough and CU Mortgage Direct gave money for the worthy cause, it was a bad look – to say the least,” wrote columnist Morgan Matzen. “South Dakota has a history of ranking last, or near the bottom, for teacher pay. And that’s despite the estimated fiscal year 2022 state aid totaled just under $500 million to all 149 school districts, a number that has increased regularly in the last five years.”
So how much money did these teachers grab before scoring the extra $500? Barry Longden of Harrisburg High School managed to take away the most, with $616. Tasha Davis of Dell Rapids Public walked way with the least: $378.
Check out the full list below.
How much did each teacher get?
- Melissa Cole- Centerville Public School: $409
- Tasha Davis- Dell Rapids Public: $378
- Patrick Heyen- Memorial Middle School: $478
- Barry Longden- Harrisburg High School: $616
- Jill Kratovil- Madison Central: $569
- Alexandria Kuyper- Discovery Elementary School: $592
- Sawyer Schmitz- Webster Elementary School: $513
- Stephanie Sparks- Brandon Valley Middle School: $574
- Amy Staples- Oscar Howe Elementary School: $473
- Leah Van Tol- LifeScape Specialty School: $379
