2025 Education Support Professionals: Year in Review

North Dakota’s public schools run on the talent and heart of our amazing support staff — the para pros, secretaries, custodians, tech wizards, bus drivers, food service crews, nurses and so many more who keep everything moving, every single day at our public schools.

Likewise, all of our Education Support Professional (ESP) members and the North Dakota United ESP Advisory Committee (ESPAC) kept busy throughout 2025. Here are a few highlights from this past year:

• Four members of ESPAC — Dana Mork and Laurie Mahrer, both from Mandan; Barb DuBord, of Kindred; and Harlan Stewart, from Bismarck — attended the National Education Association’s ESP National Conference in March, which was held in Louisville, Ky.
• The 2025 NDU ESP Conference, held in Bismarck on April 5, provided our members with a range of professional development sessions on topics including: a report on the NEA ESP Conference from attendees; and presentations on Trauma-Informed Care, Why Anxiety is a Good Thing, Vicarious Trauma and Burnout, and Understanding Your Leadership Style.
• Our yearly NDU ESP of the Year award again had a lot of deserving nominees in 2025, and from them, three finalists were selected. All three — Joan Hall, an instructional aide at Myhre Elementary in Bismarck; Laurie Holcomb, a paraeducator at South Middle School in Grand Forks; and Brenda Muller, an elementary secretary in Hillsboro — were celebrated at their schools with special award ceremonies in front of their colleagues and students. This year’s winner, Joan Hall, was officially announced as ESP of the Year during the NDU ESP Conference, and then gave a beautiful speech at Delegate Assembly the following week.
• Harlan Stewart, a special education para at Myhre, was accepted into the NEA ESP Leadership Institute this summer. Stewart’s application to ESPLI — which is described by NEA as a “powerful leadership development program, grounded in diversity, equity and cultural competence — was selected from numerous applications from ESP members of NEA affiliates across the country. He is also the first North Dakotan to be accepted into this prestigious program!