To kick off the 2024-2025 school year, the Sioux Falls Public Schools Education Foundation surprised Jane Eilertson, the district’s longest-tenured teacher, with a breakfast in her honor (https://www.dakotanewsnow.com/video/2024/08/21/education-foundation-honors-sioux-falls-school-districts-longest-tenured-teacher/). Eilertson started her 42nd year in the Sioux Falls School District, and she has spent 40 years at Garfield Elementary.
Eilertson noted that throughout four decades in the classroom, technology has been one of the most transformative tools. She said technology has created greater efficiencies and provided incredible learning opportunities, but it has also negatively affected children. With the prevalence of laptops, tablets, and phones, she has noticed that students get less “lap time” with adults, time that they could spend talking, reading, and sharing stories. She has also noticed that students, and adults, tend to be less present when screens are readily available.
Eilertson has spent most of her time at Garfield Elementary in the kindergarten classroom. She has taught children of former students, and she said she always looks forward to seeing these families back in her classroom. When asked what her favorite part of her career has been, Eilertson said, “Loving them [my students] with my whole heart.”
Jane shared a few highlights from her career, and two were most prominent. A few years after she started teaching, she brought piglets from the farm into her classroom, and her kindergarteners chased them around the room. She has also hauled and moved a full-size bathtub up and down stairs and into various rooms. Students earn privileges to look at books in the bathtub, and it is the most popular place in the room during independent reading.
The Education Foundation started celebrating the district’s longest-tenured teacher last year. In August 2023, Education Foundation staff and volunteers surprised Sue Bills at Whittier Middle School (https://sfeducationfoundation.org/education-foundation-surprises-teacher-celebrating-44th-year-in-the-classroom/). Bills taught for 44 years, all of them at Whittier, and retired in May 2024. Through the Talent and Recognition focus area, the Education Foundation strives to highlight and recognize staff members who have invested decades of service educating the next generation. There are 1,800 teachers employed by the district.