WOODBURY, MN (WNN) – Linda Wallenberg, an English teacher, at Eden Prairie High School was named as Minnesota’s Teacher of the Year for 2025, at a banquet on May 4. Wallenberg has been teaching at the high school since 1977. 

Stacy Bartlett, life science and computer science teacher at Stillwater Area High School, was one of the 12 finalists for the honor. WNN’s story about Bartlett can be found here.

A local teacher hasn’t won since 2008 when Derek Olson, sixth grade teacher from Stillwater schools took the title. Before that it was high school math teacher, Ellen Delaney from North-St. Paul-Maplewood schools in 1998.

Education Minnesota, the 84,000-member statewide educators union, organizes and underwrites the Teacher of the Year program. An independent selection panel of 21 leaders in the areas of education, business, government and nonprofits selected the 12 finalists from a group of 31 semifinalists. There were 142 candidates for this program year. 

On its website, Education Minnesota states the winning teacher represents Minnesota’s thousands of excellent educators.

“Teaching is about the journey – the opportunity every fall and every single day to begin anew – to guide students along their own journeys, to build people, not just scholars,” Wallenberg said. “I believe teaching is a calling of love, an awakening of sorts – creating a sacred space where students can feel seen, believe in themselves, and trust their own authentic voices to take them out to the world.” 

Wallenberg began teaching after graduating from Gustavus Adolphus College in 1975 following her studies at Uppsala University in Sweden. She earned a degree in English and Scandinavian studies, becoming the first certified Swedish teacher in Minnesota. She taught 8th-grade English at Faribault Junior High for a year and a half before coming to Eden Prairie High School in 1977 as an English and Swedish teacher as well as head gymnastics coach.