Namesake’s passion for helping special-needs children lives on

The students of Helen M. Jydstrup Elementary School, 5150 Duneville St., may not be aware of their school's namesake, but her presence is certainly felt.

Jydstrup, an educator of physically handicapped children and those with special needs in Las Vegas for 23 years, is said to have been a teacher's teacher, one who served as a model for others.

"She was the consummate teacher," said the school's principal, David Frydman. "She went above and beyond for the children she worked with."

Frydman said Jydstrup would take her students to the movies and even out to dinner.

"I run my classroom like a family," Jydstrup said in a 1978 Las Vegas Review-Journal interview. "You don't just teach the things in books; you teach values, manners, everything. All the teachers I know are really sincere and try to do a good job. Sometimes it's a hard job."

Jydstrup was born Dec. 2, 1912, in Aberdeen, S.D., and attended the local Northern State Teachers College.

For more than 20 years she taught in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and her home state.

The school has followed in her footsteps by initiating progressive programs for children with special needs and learning disabilities. This marks the first year for the school's preschool inclusion program that mixes children with special needs into classrooms with their typical peers, according to Frydman, whose own 3-year-old child has Down syndrome.

"I think she would have promoted inclusion," Frydman said. "It's good for special-needs children. They need typical peers to model their behavior after."

In August 1962, Jydstrup moved to Las Vegas and was assigned to teach at Variety School.

Her son, Doug Jydstrup, also a Clark County schoolteacher for 40 years, said she was the best special education teacher in the county before special education was considered as important as it is today.

"She thought out of the box when it came to her kids," Doug Jydstrup said. "Once, she got the airlines to comp seats on a flight to Reno so she could take the kids to see the state Legislature."

During that particular legislative session, Jydstrup's children got the chance to participate in the governmental process.

"The day we were there, we attended a hearing. It happened to be on the handicapped, and some of my kids were asked to testify," she said in the Review-Journal interview.

She retired from her educational career in 1985, yet remained active in the community and continued to work with charitable organizations such as the Business and Professional Women's Club and the Council of Exceptional Children.

The Clark County School District's recently introduced ranking system lists Jydstrup Elementary as a three-star school.

The school of approximately 700 students is primarily surrounded by apartment buildings and is responsible for what school psychologist Carol Salcido calls "transitional students," making it difficult to reach some of them, she said.

Still, Salcido believes that over the years, the area's population has grown more stable along with the school's.

"I think it's very much a neighborhood school," she said. "Our school events are well-attended."

Jydstrup died in April 1999, but her legacy lives on. This year, a mural of the school's namesake was painted on the wall of the lobby.

Contact Southwest/Spring Valley View reporter Nolan Lister at nlister@viewnews.com or 383-0492.