Hilgers brings experience, enthusiasm

Posted on: Aug 9, 2018

The new early childhood programs coordinator at Delano Community Education brings a wealth of experience to the position. 

Dawn Hilgers is taking on the management mantle after the retirement of Jane Shaffer earlier this summer, and will also teach some parent education classes in the wake of longtime Early Childhood Family Education teacher Ginny Triplett’s departure.

“It’s very exciting to be here,” said Hilgers, who has been a parent educator in the Watertown district for the past 17 years, and was an ECFE teacher and paraprofessional in Waconia before that. “I love this community. I love how involved they are. I love how supportive they are of the school district and vice versa, how the school district is so supportive of the community. It’s not that hands-off feel that some of the bigger communities get. We’re connected.”

While she has a history with ECFE, Hilgers has not always worked in education. After earning a degree in marketing from St. Cloud State University her first job was as a licensed real estate agent. She also worked in customer service for Ford Motor Credit. After the first of three children arrived she joined an ECFE class in Waconia, and the rest is history.

“I enjoyed it so much I wondered if I could work part-time for them. So I started as a paraprofessional, and after my second child I thought maybe I should just become a teacher,” Hilgers said. 

She went through the early childhood parent education teacher licensure program at Crown College in nearby St. Bonifacius and took the next step up the ECFE ladder. When the parent educator position opened in Watertown and offered more hours, Hilgers switched districts and soon took on early childhood screening duties as well.

“So I’ve gone from being a parent to a paraprofessional, then to a teacher and now to a coordinator,” said Hilgers. “And I was a volunteer and an advisory member too, so I have some experience from every point of view now.”

The path to Delano first presented itself last year when Hilgers began teaching an evening parent education class here in order to pick up additional working hours. When Shaffer retired Hilgers decided to apply for the position.

“She brings a passion to the field,” said Delano Community Education Director Diane Johnson, who was familiar with Hilgers from their mutual time in Watertown. “There is a depth of experience from having been a parent educator for many years. And she has a lot of energy and enthusiasm that really shines through. I think she’ll make great connections with people.”

In Delano Hilgers will expand on her parent education and early childhood screening duties to also oversee Wee Tiger Preschool and Lunch Bunch. She will also continue to teach at least a few ECFE classes for the time being. She said her initial impression of Delano, formed primarily during the previous year of teaching night classes, has been overwhelmingly positive.

“The people who came to my classes on Thursday nights were so welcoming and so generous and so kind,” Hilgers said, adding that it can be difficult to follow in the steps of long-established staff people. “Once I figured out what they were looking for and how that fit into my teaching skills and style, then we found the groove and it worked really well.”

When not at work, Hilgers enjoys antiquing, spending time at her cabin near Sauk Centre, reading, and playing board and card games of all kinds. Her three children are Lauren, 24, who lives in Colorado; Alec, 19, currently working and studying computer numerated control at Dunwoody Institute; and Carly, 17, a senior at Holy Family High School in Victoria.

Hilgers acknowledged the quality work of her predecessors, and said she is looking forward to continuing that tradition.

“Jane, by all certainty, was one who had passion for this field,” she said. “You have to like your job. If it’s something you’re passionate about it makes a job enjoyable. You like it, you want to do it, and it doesn’t seem like work. I feel like I’ve had that same passion for it too.”

Post Categories: Community Education