According to Janelle Halverson, music touches and reaches children in a way that nothing else can. Halverson, a music teacher at S.G. Reinertsen Elementary School, was named Reinertsen’s 2015 Teacher of the Year.

“I believe in the importance of educating the whole child,” Halverson said. “Music and visual arts provide a means for expressing and interpreting human behavior and experience. The education of children is incomplete if the arts are not part of daily classroom activities.”

Because Halverson feels strongly that music must be part of students’ education, she has taught a class at Minnesota State University Moorhead for the last seven years that teaches elementary teachers ways to integrate music into their classrooms.

Halverson, who has taught for Moorhead Area Public Schools for 20 years, has been a music teacher at Reinertsen for 11 years. Prior to that she taught at Probstfield Elementary, Edison Elementary, Washington Elementary and Moorhead High. Before teaching in Moorhead, Halverson taught for Fargo Public Schools for one year and Madison (Wis.) Public Schools for three years.

Halverson earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Concordia College and bachelor’s degree in music from Minnesota State University Moorhead. She also has a master’s in curriculum and instruction from University of St. Thomas and Kodaly certification from MSUM.

“Janelle exposes our students to many types of music,” said Anne Moyano, principal at Reinertsen Elementary. “Every year she invites performers to her music classroom to enrich her teaching. Within the past year her classes and those of our other music teacher have heard early career opera singers and bluegrass musicians perform right here at Reinertsen.”

According to Moyano, Halverson teaches her students the basics, which provides the students with a foundation for piano lessons, band, orchestra, choir, musical theater and a lifelong enjoyment of music.