Minnetonka High School Principal Jeff Erickson

Our meeting on June 23^rd was a presented by Jeff Erickson, the head principal at Minnetonka High School. His education experience includes 13 years of teaching Spanish at MHS before he got his certification to be a principal. He was one of the principals at MHS, left to head his own school, and returned a year-plus ago as head of the school.

 

This year, the school graduated 733 seniors this month; the freshman class is 829, so the school is still growing. He talked specifically about 5 things in the program. First, academic achievement: the student in the middle of the class has a 3.2 grade point average and the average ACT test score continues to climb. Second, he talked about the VANTAGE Program. This is a program where students work one on one with executives of major corporations getting experience in real business situations. Third, he talked of the service component of the program where students have to complete a service components to graduate. Fourth, he talked about the language immersion program, where kids who started in the program in first grade will enter 9^th grade next year. The school will ultimately be ½ bilingual. And finally, he talked of the high level of technology. All of the students have IPads, and they arr fully integrated into the learning programs.

 

Jeff said that the school has a “two way test” similar to our 4 way test, “Do the right thing,” and “Represent us well.”