Eden Prairie High School (EPHS) industrial technology instructor and department lead Sheila Stalberger was named one of 25 winners of the 2025 Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence in a surprise ceremony Tuesday.
Stalberger, who teaches Intro to Woodcrafting, Intermediate Wood Custom Design and Capstone Advanced Wood Crafting at EPHS, will receive $50,000 for her work in skilled trades education. Of that, $35,000 will go to the school’s skilled trades program and $15,000 directly to Stalberger.
The Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence is awarded annually to outstanding skilled trades teachers in U.S. public high schools, according to its website. This year, 1,001 teachers from 49 states applied, Harbor Freight Tools District Manager Scott Genke said at the ceremony.
Teachers from 18 states won the award this year, according to a Harbor Freight Tools for Schools press release. Stalberger was the only Minnesota teacher honored and just the second from the state since the award’s creation in 2017.
“Sheila is more than a teacher,” EPHS Principal Jaysen Anderson said at the ceremony. “She’s a leader and champion of the student experience. She sets the tone not only in her classroom but across our entire school, showing students and colleagues alike what it looks like to lead with passion and purpose.”
This is Stalberger’s 29th year teaching and sixth year at EPHS.
At EPHS, she has coached students in engineering and innovation competitions, earning state and national awards, and expanded community partnerships. For her capstone class last year, students built custom furniture for a local nonprofit supporting young people experiencing homelessness. Since she began at EPHS, enrollment in her courses – and the number of graduates entering the trades – has increased by 20%.
Stalberger is also a fierce advocate of girls and women entering the trades, which has led to enrollment of female students in her classes increasing by a third.
“She is constantly making wood shop and also the trades seem, even though it is male-dominated, she makes it seem like an environment that isn’t in the sense of she really includes everyone,” said January Cook, a junior at EPHS and one of Stalberger’s female students. “She really thinks that all the women in the space are as capable as the men, which they are.”
Another surprise at the ceremony was a prerecorded video message from U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (DFL-Minnesota), who congratulated Stalberger on her award and highlighted her career and accomplishments so far.
“Sheila, congratulations on this well-deserved recognition,” Klobuchar said in the prerecorded video. “What you’ve built is bigger than one project or a class; you’ve created a legacy. You’ve taught students to weld, to design, to build. That’s incredible. So thank you, Sheila, for everything you’ve given to Eden Prairie High School and to the state of Minnesota and to our country.”
Stalberger plans to use the prize money to add more automation to her classes and “get us a little bit more up to date with where everybody is in industry.” She hopes the updates will better prepare her students to enter the skilled trades..
Earning an award of this caliber and the recognition that comes with it is not the biggest win for Stalberger. The opportunity to advance her students’ learning is what she is most looking forward to and is something she said she strives for every day.
“(Winning the award) just means a lot because I get to help kids learn more, and that’s really all it means to me,” Stalberger said. “I get to help advance them further than what I can with what I own now, and I get to get them a little bit more ready for industry out there, and I’m pretty excited about that.”
