Upper School Archives

August 20, 2020

This year, Picture Day will look a little different due to our hybrid schedule. Instead, we will have Picture Days at MPA! We are using a new picture vendor this year, Jostens, and you should have received a flyer at home and via email with information about how to order your pictures online. Please note that due to the shift to an entirely online ordering process from Jostens, your email address will be shared with Jostens in order to facilitate the ordering process.

Picture Days At MPA dates will be:

Wednesday, September 9: PreK-4, Grades 7 and 8, and the Upper School Panther Pride cohort. Students who are doing full virtual school can come in for pictures from 3-4 PM.
Monday, September 14: Grades 5 and 6 and the Upper School Panther Spirit cohort.
Monday, October 5: Retake Day for PreK-4, Grades 7 and 8, and the Upper School Panther Pride cohort.
Monday, October 12: Retake Day for grades 5, 6, and the Upper School MPA Spirit cohort.

What should my child wear?
All students should be in school uniform or dress code. Jostens asks that your child avoids wearing the color green!

Jostens, knows customers care deeply about privacy and data security. Customer trust is their top priority and maintaining this trust is an ongoing commitment. They strive to protect the privacy of customer data by the security policies, practices and technologies put in place. Jostens does not sell or rent directory information to third parties for any reason. Jostens does not use email addresses to market any other products or services. Read More

Looking To Do Right In The World

August 19, 2020

by Dhruv Muppidi, MPA senior

Dhruv spent his summer involved with Breakthrough Twin Cities (BTC), a local organization closely partnered with MPA. Breakthrough is a challenging academic enrichment program for highly motivated, under-resourced students, where all the teachers are high school and college students.

MPA’s close relationship with Breakthrough definitely played a large role in sparking my interest for the program. BTC’s headquarters are located on the MPA Campus, so I have had numerous encounters with the staff and faculty of the program while roaming the halls. I was first exposed to Breakthrough when my neighbor was employed by the organization, working at the BTC’s MPA offices for the entirety of my fifth-grade year. While it was terrifying to have an adult in my close vicinity who would never refrain from spilling my deepest childhood secrets to my peers, I distinctly remember–even six years later–her descriptions of how transformative the teaching fellow experience was for students in high school and undergraduates in college alike. Read More

Meet Spanish Teacher Mariajose Johnson

August 18, 2020

How many years have you been at MPA?
The 2020-2021 school year is my third year at MPA.

What do you love about MPA?
I love the environment of student focused, high energy teachers all over the building! I love the fact that students have the opportunity to learn a second language starting in Kindergarten, as well as having physical education, arts, music, technology, library, drama and the Makerspace! I love being a teacher at MPA and bringing the love of teaching/love of students kind of energy every day. It is energizing and motivating!

How does MPA inspire students who dream big and do right?
I believe that MPA inspires students who dream big and do right by promoting flexibility and creativity in the curriculum, and really encouraging extracurricular activities with the no-cut policy. Read More

Meet Alumni Board Member Kethan Dahlberg ’14

August 18, 2020

During his time at MPA, Kethan Dahlberg found his home-away-from-home. From early morning jazz band rehearsals and Nordic ski practices to late night track meets and study sessions for group projects, MPA taught him the importance of teamwork, perseverance, grit, and, importantly, the value and benefit of being an active and engaged member of the community. “Now, reflecting as an alumnus, and especially given the past few months of lock-down orders and quarantines, I feel it’s important for me to become further involved with my fellow alumni and the school to make sure the same strong sense of family and opportunities that I had during my time on campus remain in place for current students,” he said.

After MPA, he attended Harvard and graduated in 2018 with a concentration in government, secondary in music and citation in Spanish. He also pursued a variety of internship opportunities in various levels and branches of government. While he ultimately hopes to end up back in public service someday, he applied for his job with a private law firm before law school to see the other side of the coin and gain some insight into how businesses operate from a legal perspective. Read More

Meet Alumni Board Member Amanda Magistad ’12

August 18, 2020

Class of 2012 alum and 13-Year Club member Amanda Magistad joins the Alumni Association Board this year to serve, participate in, and grow with the MPA Alumni community. “I can confidently say that I would not be where I am today without the education and support I received from MPA. The opportunity to be a member of this board, and to hopefully ensure positive experiences for current and future students is a privilege,” she said.

Amanda has continued to stay connected with MPA after graduating. Her sister currently attends MPA, and Amanda loves attending Homecoming and staying up to date with current events through email newsletters and social media. “I continue to support MPA’s mission in everyday life by, ‘Dreaming Big and Doing Right.’ In both my personal and professional life I stand up for what is right, what I believe in and treat everyone with kindness. I am innovative, I am not afraid to speak up and I push myself to thrive and improve every day.” Read More

A Message From MPA Alumni Board Member Annie Stewart ’11

August 18, 2020

As many MPA Alumni are choosing a gap year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Alumni Board Member, Annie Stewart ’11 shares her thoughts and experiences. We want to hear your story! Contact alumni@moundsparkacademy.org to let us know your plans for the upcoming school year and to share your insights on gap years, navigating a new school during these challenging times, or other topics.

I started my St. Olaf career as a double major in biology and environmental studies with the intent of going to medical school. This past spring I completed a master’s degree in elementary education. Looking back, I wish I would have gotten a fine arts degree.

You know what I would have benefitted from? A gap year.

There are lots of reasons why students take a gap year between high school and college. I never knew that was actual option for me, and I didn’t know anyone else who was taking one. Once I got to St. Olaf I met dozens of people who had taken gap years. All of them seemed to know what they wanted out of their college experience, they were confident in themselves, and they had a strong sense of purpose. I changed my major 3 times as a undergraduate, now I wonder what I could have figured out about my goals and interests had I taken a gap year–before paying for 16 credits of pre-med classes. There is no guarantee that a gap year will give you clarity or all of the answers, but if your gut is telling you that a gap year could be right for you, listen. Read More

Details About The AUXS Safety App

August 13, 2020

All MPA families should have received an email from Safetyapp@auxs.org with information about how to install the Safety App Powered by AUXS. This will enable MPA to effectively monitor and track screening as a preventative measure and will have the ease families need for this step to be quick and easy.

Click here to learn more about this app and how it will help keep our community healthy and safe.

If you were able to download it but are having difficulties submitting your screening, please try the following:

When you’re typing in your student’s name in the first box, try waiting for just a moment after you’ve typed in their first and last name for a drop-down auto-fill to appear. Then click on their name for it to autofill to your child’s information that is connected to your account.
Try completely closing out the app and logging back in.
Ensure you’re filling in the temperature reading, even if it’s within the recommended under 100 degrees range.
Ensure you’re using the AM or PM app at the appropriate times. Also, if you’ve already completed that form for the day, it will not let you fill it in again.
These screenings should be done every morning before arriving at school and every evening. To aid in establishing this routine, we ask families to begin screening students now, prior to the start of school to identify any possible exposures or symptoms.

We have received some questions about the app’s privacy policy. The AUXS Safety App uses Google Cloud, which regularly undergoes independent verification of security, privacy, and compliance controls, achieving certifications, attestations of compliance, or audit reports against standards around the world. Google Cloud’s industry-leading security, third-party audits and certifications, documentation, and contract commitments supports our compliance. The following resources are available upon request: ISO/IEC certificates, SOC 1/2/3 reports, PCI DSS, CSA STAR and other assessments. The AUXS Safety App does not sell or procure MPA’s data. They do not analyze it or even look at MPA’s data unless the MPA administrator has an issue in the back-end. They have an extremely small team who works with our administrator to ensure that each organization is self sufficient.

If you did not receive the email with information about how to download it from Safetyapp@auxs.org or are having any difficulties with downloading and signing in, please contact Jennifer Rogers-Petitt, director of development and community engagement, at jrogers@moundsparkacademy.org.

For more detailed information about the arrival and dismissal process, click here.

If you have questions about this screening process, or if you need to report possible symptoms or exposure throughout the school year, please email covid19tracing@moundsparkacademy.org.

Additional Details: The Fall 2020 MPA Student Experience

August 13, 2020

We hope you’ve been able to read and digest all of the information coming your way about the student experience this fall—we are working closely to ensure not only our exceptional academic program remains strong, but that we maintain the utmost attention to our students’ health and wellbeing, both at school and at home. We offer here a few more details for your planning and preparation for the start of school in just a little more than a week.

Arrival and Dismissal
As previously shared, one of MPA’s layered health and safety protocols is our plan for staggered arrivals. Families must select their staggered arrival time slot no later than 8 AM on Wednesday, August 19. Your family will receive confirmation of your staggered arrival time with additional instructions by Thursday, August 20. In order to maintain all safety protocols it is important for your family to arrive during their 15-minute window. We know this may be a sacrifice for some of you with changes to morning routines and potentially an earlier arrival time than you’re used to and we appreciate your assistance. Click here for your staggered arrival sign up and contact Jennifer Rogers-Petitt at jrogers@moundsparkacademy.org with any questions or concerns.

Similar to our attention to safe and staggered arrival measures, we have also planned for how to dismiss students seamlessly and safely at the end of each day. We have partnered with Control Point technology to coordinate dismissal. This will allow us to hold students in place until you arrive and coordinate their exit from the building from their respective division and appropriate door. This is how we can keep students from unsafely congregating in hallways, reduce traffic flow, and move our after school traffic efficiently. The most important thing for you to know now is that students will be dismissed when you arrive and will need to be picked up at the same doors where they are dropped off in the morning. Just a reminder that multiple students in a family need to be dropped off at the correct door by division, as opposed to all at the same door (Lower School: Doors #1 and #2, Middle School: Doors #4 and #5, Upper School: #7 North and #7 South) Read More

Characteristics Of A Resilient School And Resilient Children

August 13, 2020

by Dr. Bill Hudson, Head of School

With the beginning of the school year less than two weeks away, I find myself increasingly excited to greet our returning students and ever so eager to welcome our outstanding new students. No matter how many years as an educator, the start of a new school year is as exhilarating to me as it is to a new teacher. This year is no different. And yet, the year ahead will be different and will present challenges that we will collectively need to overcome.

As I reflected on a guiding theme for this year, I kept coming back to the importance of resiliency. Perhaps I was influenced by the life and death of U.S. Representative and Civil Rights hero John Lewis several weeks ago. Like many, the depth of my sadness in his passing was buoyed by reflecting on the impact he had over the course of his life. Mr. Lewis suffered life-threatening setbacks and faced hardship that many of us cannot imagine. However, he developed the resiliency necessary to persevere and succeed. Read More

Defining MPA’s Metrics

August 13, 2020

The MPA COVID-19 planning and implementation process is focused on risk-reduction with a multi-layered approach to reducing the risk of transmission when students and staff return to campus. Our planning process is grounded in a variety of quantitative and qualitative considerations as we consider moving our return to school dial. The quantitative metrics have been vetted by our MPA Community Advisory Group and outside professionals that have developed COVID-19 transmission and testing data in order to understand the local conditions and community spread.

These metrics include local data points on a variety of factors such as the case and new infection rate, testing rate, travel restrictions, and the reproduction number, or how many new cases are spreading for each infected individual. These metrics have thresholds that help us to think through our dial stops. However, this data alone does not provide the complete picture for our planning or the adjustments we anticipate making throughout the school. Additional qualitative or social factors we are monitoring and weighing include: the current infection or spread within our own MPA community, staff and student overall attendance, travel restrictions, our peer school decisions, recommendations from the state and federal officials, and of course, as we experienced this past spring, the Governor’s emergency orders for staying at home and business closures. These factors work in conjunction with our weekly metric monitoring to provide the complete picture for reopening campus and which mode of learning we are in at any given time. Read More