SLP Experience

SLP Experience is a print and electronic publication produced several times each year that offers a look into life at Spring Lake Park Schools across school buildings and grade levels. Watch for the bigger stories of Panther pride and purpose in your email and home mail.

RSS Feeds

Girls hockey team smiling and an SLP nordic ski student competing

Winter 2025 highlights: Athletics and Activities

Winter provided another season of highlights, successes and triumphs for Panther athletics and activities. With seven winter girls’ sports, seven winter boys’ sports and more than 45 student-based interest clubs and co-curricular activities at Spring Lake Park High School, our Panthers made us proud.

A student giving Trevor Sherbert, Educator Apprentice, a hug

Grads Return as Educators in Training in Innovative Roles

Trevor Sherbert gets a knee hug and a "hey, Mr. T" as he welcomes kindergarteners to school. He’s the day's sub. As substitute teachers are harder to find, Educator Apprentices, like Trevor, are part of an innovative approach to keeping learning going when teachers are gone. For Trevor, a Spring Lake Park Schools grad, the job is helping him explore teaching as a career.

Engineering Custom Bathroom Passes

At Spring Lake Park High School, students in the Introduction to Engineering course are putting their creativity and technical skills to the test. In a recent challenge, students designed and 3D-printed custom bathroom passes for teachers in the building.

A kindergarten student smiling and waving

5 Ways to Know Your Child Is Prepared for Kindergarten

A child’s age and birth date set them on their path to kindergarten. As that first day of school nears, parents often wonder if their child is prepared. How do you know? And, what can you do to help them get ready to be successful at school?

More than $2.3 million has been awarded from the Panther Foundation to projects in our schools that benefit students

$159,000 was raised during the Panther Foundation's Week of Giving

100% of K-6 classrooms start the day with a morning meeting

93% class of 2023 grad rate or plan graphic

57 teachers are leading professional learning for their peers this year

Senior spotlight graphic for SLP Experience

Jeff Ronneberg, Superintendent, smiling in glasses

To our community:

We get a lot of requests to visit from schools across Minnesota and beyond. This year, we’ve hosted schools from Texas, Ohio and Georgia, to name just a few. They come to see our work to personalize learning. They leave impressed with our student-centered creativity, our efforts to design engaging and relevant student work, our learning spaces, our Career and College Pathways, and more.

Each visit provides a chance to reflect on what we’re building for students. I am fortunate to work with educators who are passionate about creating engaging learning experiences for each of our students. And, WE are fortunate to be supported by a community that encourages improvement efforts and innovative solutions to meet student needs. Our students – our children – are at the center of all we do.

Fiscal responsibility is key to making this happen. We consistently work to meet student needs of today, while ensuring we are positioning our schools for future effectiveness. Through enrollment growth and strategic, responsible management, we’ve developed new, engaging student programs and improved class sizes over the last 13 years. This year, when just about every district around us faces budget cuts, we have a balanced budget and are able to continue effective student programming.

People are often surprised that out of 48 Twin Cities metro school districts, our voter approved levy funding is nearly dead last. We haven’t asked our community for new operating money in 24 years. Our board, administration and staff value our community’s investments in our schools and treat those investments with the utmost respect.

Yet, after many years of careful management, we are finally reaching a tipping point. At a time of rising costs for all, we are following the Minnesota Legislature closely this spring. State investments over the last two budget cycles have been helpful. Without further investment by the state, we may have to consider turning to our community.

Being excellent stewards of our resources is a point of pride and an ongoing commitment. We know our collective stewardship has never been more important to creating and sustaining the schools necessary to ensure our young people are ready for what the future holds. Thank you for your ongoing commitment to Spring Lake Park Schools and our staff and students.

Plan your summer with Community Ed Programs

Slide into summer with programs for grades K-12. We have athletic camps with SLP coaches, field trips, community experiences, enrichment programming, child care options and more. There’s plenty of summer fun, learning and growing with Spring Lake Park Schools. Explore summer options online.

SLPHS theater spring musical: "Hello, Dolly!"

This musical adaptation bursts onto the stage with humor, romance, energetic dance numbers and some of the greatest songs in musical theater history. It’s the story of Dolly Levi, a strong-willed matchmaker, as she attempts to find a match for the miserly “well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire” Horace Vandergelder. Does everyone end up “happily ever after?” Come join us and find out!

April 25-26 and May 2-4. Get your tickets.

Final Live on 65 Show of this season: Piano Man, Jim Witter

Monday, May 12 at 7 p.m. in the Fine Arts Center. Audiences will love this show where they can hear the amazing catalog of Billy Joel performed by Jim Witter. Jim is a superb showman, great musician and an excellent creator of appealing shows. He is an award-winning Canadian recording artist and his incredible band lead an expertly crafted tour of the music of Billy Joel’s career. Get your tickets.