City’s newest school aims to create a place that reflects namesake’s passion for service

A school needs more than walls, desks and smartboards, more than a gym and a playground. It needs a purpose, a sense of unity and of community.

When a new elementary school opens this week in northwest Sioux Falls, it will take its purpose, its unity and its sense of community from the woman whose name it carries: nurse, military veteran, tribal councilor and Lakota elder Marcella LeBeau.

LeBeau, who treated front-line American soldiers during World War II’s Normandy invasion, died in 2021 at the age of 102. Marcella LeBeau Elementary will open Thursday; a 25-member committee chose her name from hundreds of suggestions because of her “humble, yet impactful service.”

Photographs and personal items eventually will go on display inside the school, but from the first day, teachers, staff and administrators will establish an environment that reflects LeBeau’s passion for serving others, said Patrick Purdy, the school’s first principal.

“Marcella LeBeau was a very powerful individual in the fact that she cared so much about everyone she met. I’ve heard stories from others that she helped while she was a nurse,” he said.

“She touched lives while she was also on the tribal council and interacted in a positive way with the tribe. She carried herself as someone who always cared for others above herself. She was selfless, she was a servant, and I think that’s how we want to tie into our mission, our vision of being servant leaders and setting an example of how she carried herself through her entire life.”

LeBeau Elementary — or MLB, as Purdy has affectionately nicknamed it — follows the same footprint as Susan B. Anthony Elementary, except for storage space modified to be more user-friendly. Still, it is a blank canvas for the teachers who started unloading boxes of equipment and supplies on July 21, the first day the building was opened.

Brooke Creviston was among them. The first-year teacher, a University of South Dakota graduate who spent a year student-teaching at John Harris Elementary, has chosen soothing colors to calm any jittery first graders — and any first-day nervousness of her own. She also has drawn on her student-teaching experiences and advice from her mother, also a teacher.

Creviston grew up in the Sioux Falls School District, as she put it, attending Discovery Elementary, Memorial Middle and Roosevelt High schools. Her desire to teach first grade solidified during the year she spent student-teaching.

For fellow teacher Marissa Meyer, welcoming fifth graders to her classroom will mark a personal first — the first time she has taught anywhere but Cleveland Elementary.

A special education teacher for seven years, she taught fifth grade at Cleveland for three years. Her 11th year of teaching begins after a bittersweet goodbye to Meyer’s former school.

“It was so weird to leave the only classroom I’ve ever been in,” Meyer said. “But with the excitement of getting to be part of the culture of building this school, I’m not sad anymore. I’m really excited. I’m interested to see what the dynamic is. Usually, your kids have gone together for years. Every kid I’ve met from the neighborhood seems excited about going here.”

Marcella LeBeau Elementary is the last piece in a $190 million capital improvement bond that voters overwhelmingly approved in 2018. It follows the opening of Ben Reifel Middle and Jefferson High schools in 2021.

Groundbreaking for the 84,000-square-foot, $22.1 million school took place in 2023. It was shortly before that time that Kristal Shoffeit started to consider moving her son Thomas from Renberg Elementary to the new elementary. Three years ago, she did not expect to make the change.

“My intention was for Thomas to not come here. He was open-enrolled to Renberg,” Shoffeit said. Renberg is the smallest school in the Sioux Falls School District with about 140 pupils in a one-hallway building. Like LeBeau Elementary, every child is bused to Renberg.

“A big chunk of (potential) fifth graders were planning not to move. But there’s about seven fifth graders in my neighborhood, and they are stoked. They cannot wait for school to open,” said Shoffeit, who works next door at George McGovern Middle School. “They asked me, ‘Does your key open Marcella?” because they wanted to see it.”

Eventually, Marcella LeBeau Elementary will hold about 650 students with four sections of every grade from kindergarten to fifth grade. It opens with two sections of K-3 and one section each of fourth and fifth grade, Purdy said. The lower numbers in the upper grades can be attributed to parents who don’t want their children to have another disruption in schools before middle school starts in sixth grade. Most Marcella LeBeau pupils will come from Renberg and Hayward Elementary schools.

“We’re here now, and we’re going to be established,” Purdy said. “We’ll start to pick up older students.”

The elementary school’s opening has not received the same attention that Jefferson and Ben Reifel did when their buildings were completed. That is related in part to a lesser focus on athletics and fine arts at that level. But Marcelle LeBeau has its mascot — the Bears — and school colors of blue and green, like Mother Earth, Purdy said, and soon items displaying school pride will be available in an online store.

And the pride is already there.

“Multiple businesses have reached out and are willing to partner with us and help get some things for staff,” Purdy said. “We’ve had some cover supplies for staff, and we’ve had others that are going to help facilitate things for the open house. There are exciting opportunities for kids to get to be part of other things. We’ll continue to reach out to local businesses, and Junior Achievement has already reached out.”

Teachers at Jefferson and McGovern also have been interacting with the LeBeau staff, Creviston said. With no laminator at LeBeau, McGovern has made its equipment available to LeBeau teachers. Instructors not only are willing to give their own time but also want to see their older students take leadership roles at the new elementary school.

“I’ve been contacted by multiple teachers at Jefferson about sending kids over here to do mentorship stuff and to send students over here for learning opportunities,” Purdy said. “These someday can be paid positions so they can grow as future educators.”

This is Purdy’s second time opening a new school. He has been in education for 11 years and spent the last four years as Chamberlain Elementary’s principal. It opened its new school last fall.

Like the others, Purdy has been eager for the first day of the new school year.

“I’m just extremely excited due to the fact I got to hire the entire staff and get to know them throughout the interview process,” he said. “In the last few months of getting to know them and families, I’ve been so excited about the team willingness they have and the desire to foster education for each kid. It will be insurmountable once we get opened up.”

Purdy’s experience at Chamberlain Elementary also will help in another area: Marcella LeBeau is the only Sioux Falls School District elementary school to have a STEM lab for an emphasis on science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Chamberlain also opened one last year. School librarian Jessica Freeman and lab trainers offered teachers early hands-on learning in the lab, which will be offered every other week.

The principal expects the STEM lab to be a positive experience for students and perhaps a surprise for parents.

“Parents are going to find out that their kids’ Christmas lists will be a little different this year,” Purdy said. “The amount of engagement and the amount of hands-on activities and peer learning that takes place in there, it really drives students to success, and it will be a very positive opportunity for students in K-5.”

The Marcela LeBeau staff first assembled as one on June 10 to begin their own learning process as newcomers in one building.

“We took time to listen to one another and put it all into place,” Purdy said. “We were able to create our vision and guiding purpose for Marcella LeBeau going on. We want students to belong, to feel empowered, to inspire them, for everyone to be respectful, and we want to create servant leaders. We put that into our goals and how we will lead each day and carry ourselves into our community, George McGovern and Jefferson.”

The first day that teachers could start moving into their classrooms also provided a group experience.

“There was quite the line of vehicles and trailers out in the loop,” Meyer said.

“I had so many boxes,” Creviston said. “I have an Ultima, and it was packed full.”

As a parent, Shoffeitt is helping to establish a parent teacher organization at Marcella LeBeau. The unofficial theme at George McGovern is “northwest is best,” and she knows that will carry over to the school next door.

“As a parent and as a staff member, I love that,” she said.

At McGovern Middle School, photos and reminders of the late U.S. senator from South Dakota and one-time presidential candidate dot the building. That soon also will be true at Marcella LeBeau Elementary, and her family has promised to share memorabilia that can be showcased in the school’s commons area. On Creviston’s first day of teaching at John Harris Elementary, students learned about the former school superintendent and his impact.

That will happen at Marcella LeBeau Elementary too.

“Marcella LeBeau was a very powerful individual in the fact that she cared so much about everyone she met,” Purdy said. “She carried herself as someone who always cared for others above herself. She was selfless, she was a servant, and I think that’s how we want to tie into our mission, setting an example of how she carried herself through her entire life.”