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Pipestone Area Schools fourth grade teacher Nancy Sieben- ahler plans to retire after this school year. She’s taught for 43 years, all of them in Pipestone or Jasper. Photo by Kyle Kuphal
The end of this school year will mark the end of a 43-year teaching career for Nancy Siebenahler.
Siebenahler said she’s not exactly sure why she decided to get into teaching, but that her experience working at Hiawatha Manor during the summer while in college might have sparked an interest in special education. While her reasons might not be completely clear all these years later, she said her career choice has definitely been the right fit for her.
“I actually really think God put me this way,” Siebenahler said. “To be honest with you, I think He drove a path for me. I just followed.”
Over the years, that path led her to teach special education, preschool, first grade, second grade and, for many years now, fourth grade. She has taught multiple generations. She’s also worked in every building in the school district, including Central School, Brown Elementary, Hill Elementary, Pipestone/Jasper Elementary in Jasper and now the new elementary school that opened in 2021.
Siebenahler said she wanted to stick around to teach at the new school and the she stuck around a little longer than she’d planned at the request of her granddaughter, Catherine, who is now in a different fourth grade class at Pipestone Area Schools (PAS). Her granddaughter might have some degree of special influence over her, as grandchildren tend to have over their grandparents, but it has always been the children that have kept Siebenahler teaching year after year.
“It is definitely the kids — the ah-ha moments, the perks you get from the kids,” she said.
Siebenahler said she’s loved teaching so much that she probably would have done it even if they didn’t pay her. Evidence of her love for her work is visible in her children, all three of whom work in education. That includes Trisha Hess, a language arts teacher at PAS; Melanie Pries, a second grade teacher in the Harrisburg School District; and Lance Siebenahler, an assistant principal at Jefferson High School in Sioux Falls.
During her more than four-decade career, Siebenahler has seen many changes in education. She said the biggest and best change she’s seen is technology, which can aid in teaching and can make it more enriching. If she’s teaching about the northern lights, for example, she can pull up examples of that. If she’s teaching about the Mariana Trench, she can pull up videos of a submarine exploring the trench.
“I can pull up anything,” she said.
Siebenahler’s philosophy on teaching is that students need to know they’re cared for. She’s tried to make that clear by telling her students that they are a family, that it’s her job to help them and that she has their back.
“If you can get the kid to know you care, he will perform or she will perform better in your classroom,” she said.
Another important factor in teaching, Siebenahler said, is to have the student, the parent, the teacher and the principal all on the same team.
“If you put the kid first and everybody works for the kid, you’ll see success,” she said.
Siebenahler said she decided this was the time to retire because she’s 65. As her retirement date nears, she gets teary eyed thinking about not being with the kids anymore. She said they are what she will miss most about her work. She’ll also miss her coworkers, some of whom have become life-long friends.
“Between kids and staff and parents, I have been blessed in my life,” she said.
As her teaching career winds to an end, Siebenahler said she believes the school is in a good place and headed in the right direction. She’s worked with several principals over the years and said that Elementary Principal Jennifer Moravetz, who started at PAS in 2022, is “pretty impressive” and comparable to the best of them.
Looking ahead to life post-retirement, Siebenahler said she and her husband, Lyle, who is still working in construction, plan to stay in Pipestone, near their three children and four grandchildren. She plans to spend more time with those grandchildren and she and Lyle also plan to travel more than they have during her career — a career that she would recommend to others.
“It’s a great career,” she said. “I would recommend it to anybody.”