After teaching English both in-state and internationally, and with experience as a middle school principal in the West River community of White Lake, E. David Colberg is now getting ready for his first year at Sioux Valley.

Picked from more than 20 applicants, Colberg will be the new middle and high school principal for the Volga school system in the 2008-2009 school year.

“I knew Sioux Valley has a really strong school district,” Colberg said, explaining why he accepted the offer extended by the board.

The transition also expands his principal duties and brings Colberg and his wife, Naomi, closer to family.

An Estelline high school graduate, Colberg says his parents still live in Estelline and his five sisters are scattered in Brookings and Hamlin counties.

Naomi will also be closer to family: her parents and several cousins are still live in the area.

After his high school graduation, the Eastern South Dakota native went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in English education from Dakota State University in Madison in 1995.

Following Colberg’s college graduation, though, his jobs generally took him out of the area – one across the world.

For one year he taught an English language acquisition course, emphasizing speaking ability and use in daily life, in Incheon, South Korea.

“It was something I just always wanted to do, so I just went for it,” Colberg said. “It was a difficult experience due to my inability to speak the (native) language, but the students were very respectful and willing to learn.”

Competitive schools

Comparing South Korea to his own country, Colberg says the most noticeable difference was the extremely competitive education environment in Korea. There, high school-aged students start the school day at 7:30 a.m., and once the public school day is done they go to private classes until 10 p.m. It prepares students for a hard-to-snag acceptance to a university and future jobs.

Before heading to South Korea, Colberg completed a three-year tour of duty with the Unites States Army, took his first teaching job in the Bonesteel-Fairfax School District where he was an English teacher for three years and was a Newspapers In Education coordinator for a publication in Hanover, Penn.

Returning to the area after teaching abroad, Colberg began working at ADVANCE in Brookings as he started tackling the requirements for a master’s degree in educational administration at South Dakota State University.

Taught at Flandreau

He finished the master’s work as an English teacher at Flandreau Schools, then accepted his first principal post in 2006 at White River Middle School.

“I had always hoped to teach English at the college level or go into the administration level,” Colberg said.

At Sioux Valley, the new principal plans to continue building a tradition of strong academics and recent success in athletics.

“I hope to challenge students, give them more opportunities to succeed, to prepare them not only educationally but to be contributors to society,” he said.

Now that he’s reached the administration level, Colberg and his wife are “both excited to return to the area” and looking forward to familiar surroundings.

Contact Ashley Allgaier at aallgaier@brookingsregister.com.