Six years into her retirement, Kristi Oskar-Groen, a.k.a. the O.G., works as a part-time teacher at LHS, frequently substituting for teachers and assisting Success Coordinator Kristi Pesicka with 504 forms and setting up meetings with parents. She also teaches courses at USD and Augustana University and volunteers at the Teddy Bear Den, an educational program for underprivileged pregnant women.

“I just don’t like staying home,” said Oskar-Groen.

Oskar-Groen has been working at LHS since 2011 and, in this time, has become a staple at the school through her deep affection for her students and determination to see them succeed, doing it all with a distinct and carefree humor.

“I want you all to come out and get jobs so that you can all have great paying jobs and pay into Social Security so you can support me in my old age.”
— The O.G. to her students

But behind her one-of-a-kind personality and teaching style is a unique and captivating past that few students know about.

Oskar-Groen always wanted to be a teacher.

“I was that little kid who used to play school. My brother and sister, I used to make them play…and I used to bring home all the papers [teachers threw out] so we could have school papers and do school,” said Oskar-Groen.

Growing up in Sioux Falls, Oskar-Groen attended Patrick Henry Middle School as well as LHS, but she did not plan on teaching at her alma mater immediately. She was deeply inspired by the travels of her great aunt, who visited over 100 countries in her lifetime, to travel widely in her youth.
“I always wanted to go somewhere,” said Oskar-Groen.

She made good on that dream in college when, while attending Augustana, she became a Fulbright Scholar, a prestigious merit-based grant that is meant to increase mutual understanding between the U.S. and other nations. As a part of this honor, Oskar-Groen travelled to Japan for a month to learn about the Japanese education system and how they teach both students and instructors.

Oskar-Groen’s first international trip set the stage for what would mark the first 20 years of her career: a marriage of both travelling and unique experiences with teaching.
Once graduated from Augustana, Oskar-Groen married, and her spouse’s military duty would facilitate much of her travel. First, they moved to Cold War Berlin, where she got her first teaching job as a P.E. teacher at an elementary school, a job she had been chasing since middle school.

“…Part of the allure for [P.E.] was, at the time, women couldn’t wear pants to work and to school. We had to wear dresses,” said Oskar-Groen. “And so, the PE teachers at Patrick Henry could wear sweatsuits. I was like, ‘I want to be a PE teacher ‘cause I want to wear sweatsuits and T shirts and sweats all day.’”

Throughout the rest of her time in Germany, Oskar-Groen would also work at a middle school and a rec center, as well as moving to Frankfurt. However, being in a military family, she soon moved again. Throughout the next decade, Oskar-Groen lived in Kentucky, waiting for a confirmed list of all locations, and New Jersey, where for five years she taught at Fort Dix Federal Prison.

After undergoing a three-week training program with the FBI — learning how to use firearms of all sorts — Oscar-Groen entered Fort Dix for the first time, a medium security prison that had over 2,500 inmates.

“They walked me in, and I had to go through this Sally port and check in my stuff… It’s all surrounded with all the wire and guards and everything else. And I looked around, and I remember saying, ‘Augie didn’t prepare me for this.’ It was just. ‘What am I doing? Why am I doing this?’” said Oskar-Groen. “Then, as I started to meet the inmates, and started saying…‘If they can’t read and they can’t write, what job are they going to have to be able to support a family?’”

While working at Fort Dix, Oskar-Groen experienced some of the biggest perspective shifts of her teaching career.

“It really changed how I saw things. Instead of ‘I’m going to help these kids get smart,’ it was ‘Oh my gosh, look at all these people that [have] been kind of tossed. So, it really gave me that idea that tossed people, people that other people don’t have the time for, I’m going to have the time for,” said Oskar-Groen.

After 21 years and 19 moves, Oskar-Groen returned to Sioux Falls to care for her mother.

“This has always been home, and I always knew I’d come back. My mom got real sick, and I came back to take care of her. I was never going to leave,” said Oskar-Groen.

“I just love seeing that light go off in kids. Like yesterday, I was doing exponents, and we were multiplying them and dividing them…and all of a sudden, the kid goes ‘Oh, yeah’ — that moment. And I don’t get that every day, but then I joke with kids and have just as much fun,” said Oskar-Groen.

Now “retired,” Oskar-Groen is mainly known as a substitute teacher.

“I like to sub in rooms that make me feel comfortable — because I’m old. I want to be in a room [where] I can actually teach. Yesterday afternoon, … I was teaching exponents, and I was teaching, and I was at the board, and I was helping them and we were getting stuff done,” said Oskar Groen. “I don’t want to go in and say, ‘they’re going to read this today, or watch a video’ — how boring. I want to teach.”