May 21, 2021
At the May General Board Meeting held earlier this week, the MPA Board selected their officers for the upcoming school year. Jack Luellen will serve as President, Becky Springstead will serve as Vice President, Beth McDonald will serve as Secretary, and Brittney Horstman will serve as Treasurer. The staff selected Ms. Ashley Foehner to serve as their representative to the Board for the upcoming year.
At the April General Board Meeting, the Board was made aware of a resignation of one of our current Board Members. We wish to thank Brandon Smith for his years of service. With the remaining one year of his term, the Board voted to appoint Katherine Schulz to fulfill this term. We appreciate her willingness to serve in this capacity.
During the Community Meeting earlier in April, the Board shared some exciting details about upcoming construction on the main campus. The following projects are slated to take place over the summer and be complete by the beginning of next school year. As a reminder, these projects are funded from the school improvement 5B Bond Funds, which were passed in 2018.
One of the more visible updates will be the front office. Over the summer, the office will be rebuilt so that the main entrance to the building is more secure. Once complete, all visitors will pass through the office to enter the building. In addition, an extensive outdoor classroom is planned for the south of the building. Shade structures, seating, landscaping, and learning materials will be included.
Finally, irrigation will be installed on the east side of the property to help the grass field grow and allow it to be used for PE, classrooms, field days, etc. landscape plan-9feb21.pdf
MPA North, the property across the street that was purchased last year, is still being designed for construction of a future middle school and homeschool program expansion. Zoning, licensing, and other necessary elements are being worked on as well. This building development is moving in lock step with the school and curriculum development. We look forward to being able to provide more updates on this property as the year advances.
We wish to thank the teachers, staff, children, and community for coming together to make this school year the success that it was. There were many new protocols and procedures in place and the Board is grateful that this year was handled with such grace and courtesy. We hope you have a safe and enjoyable summer!
Sincerely, The Board of Directors of MPA
October 7, 2020
Dear MPA Families,
With the new school year now underway, we want to welcome you all back to MPA. If you are a new family this year, we hope you feel a warm welcome from this community. Even though things may look and feel a little different this year, our school and its commitment to providing a Montessori education remains intact. The staff is working tirelessly to continue teaching our students in this unprecedented time and we wish to thank them for their incredible amount of work in getting our school up and running in both the remote and in-person environments.
As many of you know, the Board of Directors voted last Spring to pursue the purchase of the church property (located directly north of our existing campus) utilizing 5B funds. We are pleased to share with the community that we have in fact now closed on that property. Additional funding and refinancing were also pursued this summer and those transactions have also recently closed. The rezoning of the property is underway, along with design and construction timelines.
We are pleased to share that the property has been named “MPA North” and we are eager to get things moving over there so it can be utilized in an efficient manner. The Board is still committed to making updates to our existing campus as well, with planned outdoor education expansions and a more secure school entry/office still being at the top of the priority list. We will continue to update the community on the progress of both campuses as we move through this school year.
We would like to invite the community to join us October 24 and 25 for an “MPA North Clean Up Day”. Please plan to bring gloves, your mask, water bottles and any/all gardening tools as we give the landscaping a good once ahead of the winter season. More details on this day will be sent out in upcoming newsletters.
Over the summer, the Board met virtually for a two-day long strategic planning workshop. Knowing we must stay diligent to planning beyond the 2020-2021 school year, we examined our strategic themes, including planning a middle school. We continue to make progress in exploring this expansion and will again provide updates to the community as they are decided.
We look forward to sharing many more updates with the community this year. We hope you and your family are staying healthy and well.
Sincerely,
The Board of Directors at MPA
May 6, 2020
We are grateful to those who were able to join the livestream of MPA’s Annual Community Meeting last night, hosted by the Board of Directors. For those who missed it, you can find the recording here: https://youtu.be/U0dAlDqKiog
During the Community Meeting, the Board shared some reflections of the year, progress made on the school’s strategic themes, and answered many questions from the community. The Board also shared some Building Expansion Updates. Below you will find a recap of those updates.
As you know, in 2018 voters approved providing two types of funds to schools including MPA. The first type of funds (5A) were available to meet any needs of the school. The Board allocated 100% of these funds to support the salaries of the staff. The second type of funds (5B) were available only for building and capital improvements.
Over the past year we shared with you our progress on developing a plan to use those 5B funds in a way that meets our current and future needs and is fiscally responsible. The master plan to meet those needs was shared with you this past fall. However, as we began the design phase for those improvements, we learned that the 3-acre church property across the street from MPA became available for purchase. After much deliberation and in consultation with school leadership, we are excited to share that the Board voted to enter into a contract to purchase the church property using those 5B Funds. We are currently in our due diligence phase of this process.
The planned use for this building is still forthcoming, but some options include an expanded homeschool program and/or a potential middle school. We believe this opportunity will provide space for long-term growth for our school, will facilitate progress on our strategic themes, and we look forward to sharing updates with you as we move forward in this process.
However, we still recognize our need for improvements to our existing building that are reflected in the master plan. We remain committed to working to meet those needs. We are monitoring refinance options and interest rates to free up and/or borrow additional funds at a lower rate for these improvements. Again, we will continue to update the community as we move through this process.
Finally, we want to thank our staff and parent community for all of the support through this unprecedented time. We hope your family is well and we look forward to a time when we can be together in person again at our wonderful school.
Sincerely,
The Board of Directors of MPA
If you have any questions and want to discuss with a MPA Board Member click here for contact information.