WIT Spotlight

Newell News

This month’s spotlight is on Mrs. Elizabeth “Betsy” _Burtzlaff. Betsy is a WIT Coalition members from it’s beginning. She is the one that helped come up with the name: “Whatever It Takes Coalition” _and she is the Newell high school science teacher. She has a Masters of Science in Curriculum and Instruction and has taught 24 years of Middle School/High School Science Education.

Betsy is married to Miles Burtzlaff and they have been married for 33 years. They have 3 wonderful children that have all graduated from Newell and are finding their next adventures. Payton is a Neurovascular interventional radiological technologist at Sanford Hospital, Lexa is in her final year at Mount Marty University for Physical and Occupational Therapy and Colton is beginning his classes for Business at Southeast Technical College.

Betsy is a true “Science Nerd”—meaning this in a loving way. It is fun to listen to her and see her in action when it comes to Science. She incorporates practices that she acquires while working with research faculty at the South Dakota School of Mines and South Dakota State University to her classroom. She takes her students off campus to work with different university students. She has taken students to the Scrubs camp for several years and the students learn more about the health-care area that could be a passion of theirs to pursue. She supports and helps all the seniors by letting them know about scholarships, writes letters of recommendation, and helps them complete financial aide forms.

She finds ways to help students learn about other leadership-type programs such as Girl’s and Boy’s State or SURF internships. Her students surely get the best experience that she can muster and the school receives financial compensation and scientific equipment for her classroom. She is a blessing to the school by being a mentor for new faculty at Newell, has insight on School Improvement, PLC and the Accreditation processes because of her prior work with these state programs.

It has been mentioned numerous times that she is the Momma Bear of the Ag Science Building. Betsy goes the extra mile to help students and staff succeed. Pictured to the left: One of the hands-on activities done during her Forensic Class. Betsy make learning fun. Betsy is an avid canner. She never sits and is always busy.