I’m not sure of the exact figures, but I would estimate that about 95% of Eden Prairie kids live within the Eden Prairie School District #272. Sure, not all of them go to school in Eden Prairie Schools, but most of them do. There are, however, two other public schools districts who can claim part of our city for their districts: Minnetonka School District #276 and Hopkins School District #270.
The City of Eden Prairie and Eden Prairie School District #272 have a strong and productive working relationship. I’ve talked about that in this blog before, and I’ll probably talk about it again sometime in the future. But today, I want to talk about the City’s relationship with one of our other public school districts: Hopkins #270.
The Hopkins School District covers parts of the cities of Hopkins, Minnetonka, Eden Prairie, Plymouth, and Golden Valley. The Superintendent of the Hopkins School District is Dr. Michael Kremer. In the photo below, Dr. Kremer is on the left. To the right of Dr. Kremer is Mr. Scott Croonquist of the Association of Metropolitan School Districts. To right of Mr. Croonquist is Ms. Eileen Harvala. Ms. Harvala works in communications for the Hopkins School District. And to the right of Ms. Harvala is Ms. Laurie Ahrens, City Manager of Plymouth.
I snapped this photo yesterday at a monthly meeting that Dr. Kremer holds with the city officials of the cities in his school district. Eden Prairie hosted yesterday’s meeting. It’s the first time that we’ve ever hosted this meeting.
We talked about issues such as busing routes for fall, soaring fuel prices, and local control of school finances. Mr. Croonquist was at the meeting to discuss possible joint advocacy that his organization might do with city governments at the Capitol. Mr. Louis Jambois, Executive Director of the Association of Metropolitan Municipalities, was also at this meeting. He was receptive to working together with the school districts on joint advocacy. The group will meet again next month and talk more about what issues we might work together on.
Good meeting. It will be interesting to see if cities and schools can come together on a common policy initiative agenda.
