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com m u ni t y Camp Royal 2019
Kids Zumba Dance
Update Hopkins Public Schools
The community’s guide to the District.
Program sparks female interest in finance careers
Hopkins is the first Twin Cities school to participate in the Rock the Street, Wall Street program, a financial literacy program for high school girls designed to spark their interest in financial careers. A total of 16 students are from Hopkins this year. “Students benefit by becoming more confident in their own finances, as well as hearing about careers in finance that have historically been male-dominated fields,” said Kathryn Jordan, RTSWS program coordinator. The program is offered at 18 schools in 13 cities nationwide.
Hopkins High School receives 34 Minnesota Scholastic Art Awards
Hopkins High School art and photography students showcased their talent by winning a collective 34 Minnesota Scholastic Art Awards (eight Gold Key, 10 Silver Key, and 16 Honorable Mentions). Students won 12 more awards than last year, and doubled the number of Gold Key awards. Students who received the Gold Key and Silver Key awards had their pieces on exhibit at the Regis Center for Art at the University of Minnesota in February.
Spring 2019
Be active and dance to upbeat music! Enhance memory and coordination all while having fun. Free event! For children 4-8 years of age. Sat., April 20, 10-11 a.m. Minnetonka Medical Center, 15450 Hwy. 7, Minnetonka Register: HopkinsSchools.org/early
Now with more classes than ever before! Art, sports, science and technology, LEGOs®, cooking, robotics, pottery, crafts, academics, and more. Get ready for summer! Register online today! Go to HopkinsSummer.org or call 952-988-4070.
New Adult Spring & Summer Classes Discover dance, photography, fitness, music, fine art, pottery, and much more in the Spring/ Summer 2019 Community Education Catalog! Arriving in April! Visit HopkinsCommunityEd.org to view new classes and register!
Embracing a Culture of Innovation Through Labs Schools test bold ideas to bring student-centered learning into the classrooms Paul Domer, principal at Eisenhower Elementary and XinXing Academy, has spent quite a bit of time thinking about the future. He has read books, attended seminars, and listened to a variety of perspectives. What he learned validates a gut feeling he has about the traditional model of education — it needs to change. “Our students will be asked to solve some big problems in the future — the achievement gap, poverty, and climate change, to name a few,” said Domer. “These are really important things, and if we want students to be successful, we need to give them more than facts.”
Ben Dickens, an NU teacher, works with students on their design concepts.
University (NU), a nontraditional school experience for students who are not reaching their engagement potential. NU students are enrolled in two regular classes — math and another subject of their choice. The rest of their schedule is open and flexible. The curriculum is inquiry-based, meaning the students have a lot of control over what they learn and how they learn it. Although North is only a few weeks into its experiment, students are already giving it positive reviews.
Domer is currently working with his staff to create an innovation lab designed to increase student-centered “I love NU and I would recommend it for everyone,” said learning. The strategy of a lab is to test a bold idea in a seventh-grade student Isaiah. “I did not look forward to controlled setting with a small group before bringing it school before, but now I do.” to scale. The concept is similar to a pilot program, with intentional testing and measuring along NU is run by two teachers and a social the way, including measuring student worker, and is supervised by the dean of I want to satisfaction and engagement. students. Its goals are to meaningfully Although he is just beginning to set up what this might look like, Domer knows that the desired outcome is to shift his building’s learning environment toward problem solving, creativity, and collaboration — all skills that will be critical for the future workforce. “My hope is to get us all thinking differently,” he said. “I want to align learning with the needs of the real world, and ultimately to create learners who can go out and make the world a better place.”
align learning with the needs of the real world, and ultimately create
learners who can go
engage students, increase a sense of connectedness, and foster student resilience and self-awareness. Using the lab process was instrumental in allowing radical innovation. With a small sample size of 16 seventh-grade students, a core team of educators was able to swiftly move forward with a bold idea in a short amount of time.
“When I started to imagine how I would want my classroom to look like in 10 years, I could not envision how to get there short of closing down school for two years,” said world a better Debbie Hahn, a social studies teacher who helped create NU. “This is the future of place. Innovation labs are new in Hopkins, education. For me, it is how I want school with each of the schools in various stages of the process. to look like for my students and my own children.” The District expects to see more experiments in the near NU is a blend of learning that occurs both inside and future that test the boundaries of traditional school. outside the school walls. Students have traveled to the Labs are a critical part of Hopkins’ mission to go from University of Minnesota, where they were paired with a Great to World Class through a process known as Vision group of college athletes. The trip examined the history of 2031, a vision co-created by the Hopkins staff, parents, athletics through the lens of race and gender. NU students community members, and students. also visited the Minnesota Capitol and met Lt. Governor “If we think empathetically from the student perspective, Peggy Flanagan. that will begin to shape the labs we create and what we NU is headquartered in a North Junior High classroom, test,” said Dr. Rhoda Mhiripiri-Reed, superintendent of which is where students spend the majority of their day. Hopkins Public Schools. “We have to get in touch with Students are involved in many of the decisions related to our end users, which for us is our students.” their learning. As a first assignment, they designed the North Junior High tests a school within a school learning space that would best meet their needs. They North Junior High had their end users in mind when worked with a budget, created blueprints, shopped for they decided to lab a new school model known as North furniture, and consulted with an architect firm.
out and make the
see Culture of Innovation, inside