Our program on July 31st was a presentation on the state of the Minnetonka School District given by Dr. Dennis Peterson, the
school superintendent.
school superintendent.In a nutshell, the condition is great. Dr. Peterson showed a number of comparison charts in which the district’s students excelled in comparison to other school districts and countries. There were 10,750 students enrolled in the district last year, with 3800 of those students coming from other districts. The out-of-district students brought in $24 million in revenue, which helped to balance the budget. Without those students, the financial picture would be quite different.
He talked about the language immersion programs, now 12 years old and including 55% of the students, and the four recent initiatives: computer coding classes, the Vantage Program, the Minnetonka Research program, and Tonka Online.
One of the concerns Dr. Peterson has is that there is a serious shortage of teachers developing.
He provided a packet with a great deal of additional information that he didn’t have time to discuss.