Welcome Home To MPA

from Dr. Bill Hudson, head of school

The new school year is off to a terrific start! To new families, welcome to the MPA family, and I look forward to getting to know you. To returning families, welcome back. Seeing how students have grown and matured in just a few short months is wonderful.

My spirits soared on Tuesday by the enthusiasm and energy of the first official day of school. When I arrived at school around 6:15 AM, I was surprised by the number of cars parked in the north lot. I quickly remembered that our seniors were gathering in the Benz Courtyard to celebrate the break of dawn on their last first day of school at MPA.

There was fantastic excitement on the other side of the building as students bounded into the building with zeal. Their enthusiasm was matched by parents who accompanied their children into the building and stayed for coffee and pastries sponsored by the Parents Association. It was a fantastic turnout and many told us that it was hard to leave the conversation and head off to work.

We have a longstanding MPA tradition of ending the first day of school with an all-employee meeting. I invite faculty and staff to share stories about the day and the mission moments that illustrate who we are. The joyfulness in the room was palpable. Here are a few examples of what was shared that reflect the common values we share at MPA: Read More


Ready To Embrace The New School Year

Two students at Panther Camp This message is from MPA’s Office of Admission from the August 2023 issue of InsideMPA. Click here to get in touch with Admission and learn more!

Hello, August! In two short weeks, MPA students will return to campus–they’ll file in with fist bumps from Dr. Hudson, settle into their new classrooms with new teachers, and fill the Family Commons and playground while making new friendships and rekindling old ones. They will jump head first into the 2023-24 school year with a special enthusiasm that only the back-to-school season brings out in all of us. Read More


Join Us For Back To School Night

We are busy getting ready for the 2023-24 school year and we hope that you are as excited as we are! We have lots of information to share, including some important changes below. If you have any questions, please reach out to your division director or the Office of Communications at communications@moundsparkacademy.org.

Thursday, August 24

  • New Family* Orientation & Back To School Night
    *New families are considered those with students who are just joining our school plus all returning families with a student in grade 5 or 9

    • 3 PM | New Family Arrival, plus all returning families with a student in grade 5 or 9
    • 6 PM | Returning Family Arrival
    • 6:15 PM | All-School Welcome Back Assembly
    • 7:30 PM | Departure

Click here for the New Family Detailed Agenda.
Click here for the Returning Family Detailed Agenda.

  • School Photos During Back To School Night
    Martin Lenz Harrison Library

    • 4:30-6 PM | Session One
    • 6:30-7:30 PM | Session Two

We are so delighted to be joining you for Picture Day this year. Picture Day with Slow Road Photo is a little different, in all the best ways! Get ready for the BEST PICTURE DAY EVER!

  • School pictures will be happening at Back To School Night on August 24! Click here to sign up for your student’s picture time!
  • If you are unable to attend Back To School Night, the second Picture Day will be September 8. Retake day will be October 6.
  • Lower School students will no longer be in uniforms for Picture Day.
  • Be sure to add hello@slowroadphoto.com to your email contacts to ensure you receive all the communications and info from us. You will hear from us directly via email on August 17.
  • Please feel free to check out the resources available on our website, including our Welcome Message here and Parents’ Guide here.

If you have any questions regarding Picture Day or image ordering and delivery,
please don’t hesitate to reach out to us directly at hello@slowroadphoto.com.

Sign up for a picture time here.

Monday, August 28

  • New Student First Day Of School
    Includes All Returning Grades 5 and 9
    No transportation available.

    • 10:30-12:40 PM | New Lower School Students PreK-4. Before and after care is available for grades kindergarten through fourth grade with advance registration here. PreK before and after care is not available this day due to licensing restrictions.
    • 8-3 PM | New Middle School Students, including all grade five and all new grades six through eight. After care is available with advance registration here.
    • 8-3 PM | New Upper School Students, including all grade 9.
    • 8-12 PM | New Upper School Students in grades 10 through 12.

Click here for the detailed agenda.
Click here to sign up for before or after care.

Download the full back to school guide here.


Welcome to MPA, James Lekatz!

What position will you be holding at MPA?
Middle and Upper School Theater Teacher

From what school/organization are you coming?
International School of Minnesota

Tell us about your education and past experience.
I graduated in 2007 with a Theatre Arts degree from Augsburg University. Right after undergrad, I moved to London, England and completed my studies at the London International School of Performing Arts. Upon my return to Minneapolis, I worked as an Education and Access Associate at Stages Theatre Company, as well as music directed and composed many productions while on staff. I was Artistic Associate of Performing Arts at Interact Center for the Visual and Performing Arts where I collaborated to produce new works of musical theater with artists with and without disabilities. During Covid, I switch careers and moved fully into education. I taught music at Alice Smith Elementary and was the Head of Performing Arts at the International School of Minnesota.

What did you find appealing about MPA?
The atmosphere at MPA is so welcoming and kind, who wouldn’t want to be a part of it? As schools start more and more to take away arts classes, I found it exiting to see that MPA has the arts fully woven into the curriculum. Not just theater, but all arts have a place for students. Read More


Making Wishes Come True

Molly Vergin is a rising senior in the Class of 2024, and she’s attended MPA since pre-Kindergarten. Molly is a two-time leukemia survivor, being initially diagnosed in first grade and then again in the final days of eighth grade. She’s just over two years out from a bone-marrow transplant and continuing her volunteer work with Make-a-Wish. MPA Seniors complete a service project as the culmination of their community service, and we’re happy to share some information from Molly with the MPA Community.

From Molly:
As I am approaching senior year (hard to believe!) I am beginning to work on my senior service project. For this project, I am continuing to work with an organization very close to my heart, Make-A-Wish Minnesota. As part of this, I will be leading a team at the Make-A-Wish Walk for Wishes on Saturday, August 5 at 10 AM at Minnehaha Regional Park. As most of you probably know, Make-A-Wish grants wishes for children with serious illnesses. The Walk for Wishes is a 5K with the goal of raising awareness for Make-A-Wish and funding future wishes. As a Wish Kid myself, I’ve seen the transformative impact that Make-A-Wish has on the children and families they serve, mine included.

In 2014, my wish was granted—to travel to LA to meet the cast of my favorite show, one I spent many hours in the hospital watching, The Amazing Race. My wish gave me something to look forward to–bringing me joy and excitement in a really rough time. The wish also helped bring our family together when our world had completely changed. I have volunteered and spoken for Make-A-Wish for the last eight years and I can say I am thrilled to support the organization through this year’s Walk for Wishes, and I hope that some of you would like to join me. There are two ways to do this—by visiting the Make-A-Wish Minnesota Walk for Wishes website, you can donate to a team participating in the walk and/or join us to participate in the walk. My team is named Team Molly, and my goal is to raise $5000 dollars for Make-A-Wish. This is a great opportunity to fund wishes for more children, and any amount helps!

  • If you would like to walk with us on Team Molly, registration for the walk is $25. You can do that here. (This will take you to the Team Molly page. You choose the “SIGN UP” button which begins the registration process.) That $25 goes directly to Make-a-Wish MN, and it also gets you a t-shirt.
  • If you are interested in making a donation, you can use this link. Donate to Make-a-Wish through Team Molly. (You will see a yellow “DONATE NOW” button near the top and/or a pink “DONATE” down next to Molly’s name).

Thank you so much to everyone for helping make Wishes come true for kids facing serious medical challenges. All donations go directly to Make-a-Wish MN to help fund future Wishes. In the photo included, I just learned my Wish had been granted. In the second, my sister Ellen ’21 and I are posing with the host of The Amazing Race, Phil Keoghan.


Welcome to MPA, Louis McLaughlin!

What position will you be holding at MPA?
Upper School English Teacher

From what school/organization are you coming?
Visitation School

Tell us about your education and past experience.
Before becoming a teacher, I worked in the front offices of two businesses. I was a freelance graphic designer and web programmer. I even co-founded a tech startup right out of college. I also lived in five states as an adult before I turned 30 (Missouri, Louisiana, Washington, New York, and finally Minnesota). That said, I was probably 15 years old when I realized I wanted to teach high school English. So all my degrees are in literature. I have a BA in English from Loyola University New Orleans; an MA in English from Western Washington University; and an MA in Medieval Studies from Cornell University.

What did you find appealing about MPA?
Mounds Park Academy has a special place in the landscape of independent schools in the metro area. Teenagers I’d taught elsewhere described MPA as a place where students could have healthy balance, a school known for rigor, but also for fostering relationship. Coming in as a new faculty member, it seems like a place where you not only receive a great education, but where your whole, unique, individual self is welcomed and celebrated, and where your personal journey is supported.

What lasting impact do you plan to have on MPA?
I hope I can be an important force in my students’ lives. To help them grow in the subject I teach. But even more so, to be an adult who sees them, not just as the people they are, but the people they aspire to be.

What’s your big dream?
To find peace and to share it with others.

What are you (and your family, if you so choose) passionate about?
It’ll be no surprise to hear I’m passionate about education, especially about evolving what “English” class looks and feels like. Mindfulness plays a large role in my approach to teaching and to what we do each day in the classroom. My family and I are passionate about environmental education and grassroots political involvement.

What’s a fun fact about you that our community would love to know?
In graduate school, I studied three languages besides English.


Welcome to MPA, Heather Rankin!

What position will you be holding at MPA?
Upper School Science Teacher

From what school/organization are you coming?
The Science Museum of Minnesota’s St Croix Watershed Research Station

Tell us about your education and past experience.
I hold an MA in teaching from George Fox University and a BS in Chemistry from The Evergreen State College (go geoducks!). I have been an environmental chemist for most of my career, focusing primarily on water quality. I’ve worked in both the private and public sectors and have held a range of positions from laboratory technician to regulatory compliance administrator. I have taught science at both the University and secondary levels, including chemistry at Boise State University and general science at an independent school in Costa Rica. Most recently, I managed the environmental research laboratory for the Science Museum of Minnesota.

What did you find appealing about MPA?
Everything. Have you ever walked into a place and it just felt good to be there? That’s how I felt during my interview and campus tour. The Upper School science staff and leadership are amazing and I really appreciate the in-depth interview process. I’m looking forward to collaborating with fellow scientists in the Upper School.

What lasting impact do you plan to have on MPA?
I hope to give my students strong foundational knowledge that will aid them in solving future problems and building the truest, most beautiful lives for themselves that they can imagine.

What’s your big dream?
My big dream is a world with clean water, air, and soil for all living things, where the majority of people wake up feeling safe and fulfilled.

What are you (and your family, if you so choose) passionate about?
Travel, water, sunshine, the environment, reading, and community.

What’s a fun fact about you that our community would love to know?
I am learning to play the accordion. My oldest brother recently brought me my mother’s old accordion, which was purchased by my grandfather in the early 1960’s from a door to door accordion salesman.


MPA Alum Receives Award Posthumously

The MPA Alumni Association Board of Directors is pleased to announce the 2023 MPA Alumni Association Award recipient, Jaye Sinkfield ’12. This award honors alumni of outstanding talent pursuing their own creative, intellectual, and professional inclinations while embracing the spirit of MPA’s commitment to community and social outreach. Award recipients are real-world inspirations for both current students and fellow alums to dream big and do right.

Jaye was nominated posthumously in honor of their impact on the world. Tragically, Jaye passed away in January 2023, leaving behind lifelong friends, family members, and hundreds of people who felt their impact and were inspired by Jaye. We sat down with Tammy Sinkfield, Jaye’s mother, to learn more about how and why Jaye lived and the legacy they left behind.

Jaye and their twin brother, Jordan, were born to Tammy, a single parent who never dreamed of having children due in part to fibroids that prevented pregnancy. “That’s why I say, ‘They are my blessings, because God saw it fitting that I should be their mom,’” says Tammy, an inpatient nursing supervisor at Gillette Children’s where she has been for more than 25 years. “At their birth, from the moment Jaye came into my view as the doctor lifted them from my womb, Jaye was the most beautiful androgynous precious being. Though I hardly knew what androgyny meant, I understood in that instant what it was when I saw my first born baby, Jaye, this beautiful combination of beauty, grace, masculine, and feminine. Everything about this baby was symmetrical, balanced, beautiful, and perfect. Jaye was like the Black Gerber Baby. Everybody commented on what a calm and gentle spirit that Jaye had at birth. That carried them through life.”

When the time came, Tammy took great care to find a school for Jaye and Jordan, interviewing more than 12 and selecting Four Seasons A+ Elementary. “We knew we wanted private schools. I was always in private schools. But I couldn’t afford MPA at the time,” she shares. The twins thrived in elementary school, often serving as the leads in the annual plays. They were excellent performers. They came to MPA in Middle School—Tammy took a second job, the twins received a scholarship, and they got here. “I wanted them to have opportunities.” Read More


Sharing Summertime Joy

Student volunteers with MPA at PrideThis message is from MPA’s Office of Admission from the July 2023 issue of InsideMPA. Click here to get in touch with Admission and learn more!

Happy Summer! We hope you’ve had a fantastic few weeks enjoying the sunshine, summertime activities, and making memories with family and friends. So far, here are our highlights of summer:

  • Meeting new friends at Grand Old Day, Pride, and Wordplay! These community events were magical, many of them coming back from a several-year hiatus. At Grand Old Day, we danced, gave out spectacular prizes, and brought the street to life with decorative chalk drawings. Pride was such a special celebration, and sharing it with our community and the greater Twin Cities was pure magic. And this past Saturday was Wordplay, where we had so much fun celebrating our favorite authors, doing summer reading challenges, and completing a larger-than-life word search!
  • The progress on our new outdoor track! The base is now completely down, and we already have a new sandpit! The progress is going smoothly and it’s just a matter of time until it’s ready for Panther athletes to train on heading into the fall athletic season.
  • Summer at MPA! Campers are making the most of summer by launching rockets, testing recipes in the teaching kitchen, engineering in the Makerspace, and improving their athletic skills. Don’t miss the photos!

Read More


MPA Dreamers: Parents Of Lifers

Quote from Kelsi Picture yourself in the position of a parent of a PreK or kindergartener, perhaps anxiously, but jovially, beginning your school search. If you are looking at a school like Mounds Park Academy, you want your child to grow into a free spirit, a risk taker, a right maker, a dreamer, and a doer. You want an independent thinker. You want your child to be known. You want your child to love school. Your role, as the parent in the school search process, will determine the foundational years of your child’s education. It seems that for parents of the Class of 2023 Lifers, the memory remains clear as day.

Parents of MPA Lifers, the students whose entire K-12 or PreK-12 journey has taken place here at MPA, made a choice for their students and continued to choose MPA every year for all 13 years of their education. Right before they graduated from MPA, we interviewed the Class of 2023 Lifers in a group reflection on their MPA journeys. Their responses and recollections, punctuated with gratitude, nostalgia, and undeniably helpful feedback, led us to further expand on the conversation. We decided we needed to hear from the Lifer parents, as well.

An MPA education emphasizes the value of purposeful academic rigor in a hands-on, experiential, college-prep environment with the goal of instilling a lifelong love for learning. So we asked:

How has MPA accomplished this for your children, helping them find personal and academic success?

Christine (Anthony ’23): Anthony’s a quiet kid, more on the introverted side. And I think one of the things, from preparing personally, is being somewhere this many years and really knowing people and having those longitudinal relationships with teachers, classmates, and other staff at school. It has really been beneficial for him as far as building confidence and being comfortable–coming out of his shell a little bit. The first time he came here, he was 10 days old, so by the time he came as a student, he was super comfortable and felt like it was somewhere that he was familiar with. I definitely think that’s made a difference for him.

John (Freya ’23): When it comes to Freya, one thing that I think has been beneficial for her academic success is the small size of the school and the exceptional students that she’s with. And some of those kids being so exceptional and doing such exceptional work has forced her to become a better student.

Natalie (Henry S. ’23): I couldn’t agree more. One thing I’ve been really pleased about and so proud of is the diversity that Henry’s experienced here. It’s something he was looking for in his college search, which I was just so profoundly impacted by. He’d say, “mom, that’s just not what I’m used to, and I’m looking for a school with more diversity.” That is MPA. I love that. Read More