Upper School Archives

July 21, 2023

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!

July 17, 2023

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!

July 17, 2023

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

July 17, 2023

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

July 11, 2023

This 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!

MPA Dreamers: Parents Of Lifers

June 29, 2023

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

Celebrating Panther Tennis, Track & Field State Results

June 12, 2023

Congratulations to all of the Panther athletes who competed in the Minnesota State High School League State Tournaments in tennis and track and field last week!

In the State tennis tournament, Evan Fraser placed second in the Class A Singles Individual Tournament. Aarti Prochnow and Garret Webb placed fourth in the Class A Doubles Tournament.

At the State track and field meet, Zoe Mulvihill placed 16th in the preliminary race of the 400M dash, running 1:04.19. The MPA 4x200M team of Zoe Mulvihill, Nora Pederson, Delaney Cunnington and Kensi Binstadt placed 10th in the preliminary race, running 1:48.33. Griffin Jones placed 12th in the preliminary race of the 400M dash, running 52.14. Nicholas Larson placed 10th in the 1600M, running 4:27.17. Eddie Snider placed eighth in the 3200M, running 9:47.44.

What a fantastic finish to their spring seasons! Go Panthers!

Optimism In Education

June 1, 2023

from Bill Hudson, head of school

As the 2022-2023 school year draws to a close, we find ourselves in that liminal moment where memory and hope intersect. American folk artist, Grandma Moses, called this intersection a “strange thing.” Memory and hope are two perspectives that both exist and are available in the present moment. Memory allows us to look back to recall the events, experiences, and emotions in the past. Hope is directed toward the future with an enthusiastic anticipation of what is to come. While memory is grounded in the present and the past, hope reaches beyond the present and propels us toward the future.

Over the last nine months, we celebrated the loss of teeth; uniforms that fit so well in September that now rise above the ankle; students who stumbled and stammered in front of a crowd now speaking confidently; the screech of a violin bow that now sings beautifully; and seniors who recall the pain and trauma of adolescence in their senior speeches that have been transcended by a newfound sense of self and resiliency. I could go on and on.

Those of us who work in schools forever live in a liminal moment that not only speaks of the growth and development of our students but also of ourselves. Middle School English teacher Maddy Wolfe captures this so beautifully in an article recently published by the National Association of Independent Schools on their Independent Ideas blog. She writes, “When adults share which teachers impacted their lives, we don’t stop and think about it the other way around, too. Students leave marks on teachers’ lives, as well. In many ways, this student embodied the reason why I became an educator: to watch a student’s growth over the course of nine months, when the only thing you can do is marvel at what young adolescents are capable of.” Read More

Upper School Division News June 1, 2023

June 1, 2023

from Mark Segal, Upper School director

Looking Ahead

June 2: World Language Final Exams, During World Language Classes
- MANDATORY Choir Rehearsal, 10-11 AM, Nicholson Center
- Class of 2023 MANDATORY Graduation Rehearsal, 11 AM-12:30 PM, Nicholson Center
- Class of 2024 MANDATORY Honor Guard Rehearsal, 11:45 AM-12:30 PM, Nicholson Center
June 3: Commencement, 6:00 PM, Nicholson Center
June 5: English Final Exams, 8:45-10:15 AM, Locations TBD
June 5: Math Final Exams, 12-1 PM, Locations TBD
June 6: End of Quarter 4/Semester 2
June 6: Social Studies Final Exams, 8:45-10:15 AM, Locations TBD
June 6: Science Final Exams, 12-1 PM, Locations TBD
June 7: Last Day of School
June 7: Yearbook Assembly, 8:15 AM, Nicholson Center
June 7: Dismissal, 10:15 AM

One of the most challenging things an educator does is say goodbye to their students at the end of the school year. They spend the year building relationships based on trust and shared experiences only to have them come to an end early each June. There are some educators who believe that they have become experts at striking the right balance between attachment and detachment. Meaning that when the time comes for them to say goodbye they can do it with relative ease. I am unable to do that, especially with those students who are on the cusp of graduation. I have found that toward the end of each May, when stress, fatigue, and emotion is running high, I focus on the positive interactions and experiences with students. Although this practice eases the inevitable, I still get sad thinking about not having those students as part of the day-to-day community. It was refreshing to have the seniors back on campus yesterday as they hosted Service-Con and shared their senior service projects with the MPA community.

Over the past several years the Class of 2023 has spent more time with each other than anyone else in their lives, and next year they will be spread across North America and Europe attending new schools, meeting new people, and building new relationships. This will be a significant adjustment for all of us. Gemma Cheney, a senior clinical psychologist and a visiting lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London, says that “students who are securely attached and have grown up with caring teachers in their lives, turn up in the classroom and school building ready to engage and learn.” I have been fortunate to see this with seven graduating classes, and believe whole-heartedly that this is the case at MPA. Read More

Parents Association News & Events June 1, 2023

June 1, 2023

All-School St. Paul Saints Game!
Sunday, July 30, 2:07 PM at CHS Field
Join us for a midsummer Saints game! Reconnect with school friends and enjoy America’s favorite pastime. You’ll see the St. Paul Saints vs. the Toledo Mud Hens at CHS Field. This is an all-school event. Tickets cost $16 for students and $17 for adults. Tickets can be picked up at Will Call before the game under the name “MPA Panthers.” We’ll be seated together in section 115.

Watch your email for this information from your grade reps. For more info, email Christine Larson at clarsonPA@moundsparkacademy.org or Molly Oliver at molly.oliver1@gmail.com.

Buy your tickets here:
Adults $17
Students $16

Dr. Hudson’s Summer Book Club
Thursday, August 3 at 6 PM
In the mood for some summer reading? Join fellow MPA book-lovers for a lively discussion of the magical book, The “House in the Cerulean Sea” by TJ Klune. “An enchanting story, masterfully told, “The House in the Cerulean Sea” is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.”

An MPA family has offered to host Book Club at their home on White Bear Lake, and the PA will be purchasing books for those who would like to take part. Please let us know if you plan on attending the book club and whether or not you would like a copy of the book provided to you through this Google form. We will arrange book pick-up and share the address via email once the books arrive. Questions, contact Staci at sbhehe42@icloud.com. Read More