Verhelst selected as 2025 South Dakota Teacher of the Year

Amy Verhelst, a kindergarten teacher at Sioux Valley Elementary School in Volga, has been named the 2025 South Dakota Teacher of the Year. Secretary of Education Joseph Graves made the announcement at a banquet held Sept. 26 in Fort Pierre.

“Amy is the kind of kindergarten teacher every parent wants their child to have,” said Graves. “Her classroom is full of kindness and optimism. She operates with a steady hand that sets her students up to succeed in school for years to come. Her commitment to and competence with the Science of Reading practices was evident from the first moment we walked into her classroom.”

Verhelst has been teaching since 2014. She is committed to reading instruction using the Science of Reading; every day, her class receives instruction in phonics and phonemic awareness, which helps her students develop into readers before they complete kindergarten.

In a previously recorded video promoting the education profession, Verhelst spoke of her love for each of her students, and the rewarding nature of working with children in their kindergarten year. “Kindergarten is that beginning stage where I get to give them their first exposure to school, that first experience, and it’s like a whole new world for them.”

Verhelst is a graduate of South Dakota State University. She has also taught in the Brandon Valley School District and in Brownsburg, Ind. She has been at Sioux Valley Elementary since 2018.

As South Dakota Teacher of the Year, Verhelst receives prizes, including a $5,000 grant from the West River Foundation to use as she wishes, and a $2,000 honorarium from the South Dakota Board of Regents to present a series of professional development seminars to aspiring teachers. She will also have the opportunity to earn a master’s degree at no cost at one of the South Dakota Board of Regents’ universities.

Additional prizes are made possible through the generosity of the South Dakota Retailers Association and the South Dakota Education Association.

Verhelst will represent South Dakota as a candidate for the 2025 National Teacher of the Year award. The winner will be announced during a ceremony in Washington, D.C., next spring. The National Teacher of the Year Program began in 1952 and continues as the oldest, most prestigious national honors program that focuses public attention on excellence in teaching.