Big News: MELA is moving in 2017!

We want to share out some exciting news!  ​

 As you all know, we have been so incredibly fortunate for our amazing relationship here at Northern Light Church. This relationship has been so positive and this space has allowed us to grow our MELA school and our nationally recognized personalized learning model in Minnesota. The work we are doing at our school is transforming education across the country. 

In saying all of that, we have been working closely with Northern Light Church to think about our long term goals and the growth of our school model. Northern Light and MELA have determined that after multiple attempts to build on this current site that it will not be possible to do so in the upcoming school year. In an effort to continue our overall school growth, we began conversations with Northern Light to work with us and allow us the opportunity to begin exploring additional school sites for us to be able to serve more students who need us. They have been very supportive of this process since our relationship has been so strong over the past two years. We are so appreciative of them!

Our Distinctive Schools team, our school management organization, has been working closely with the MELA Board of Directors to begin searching for new space to accommodate our school and our unique model. We are in initial conversations with a site.  The site is in Maple Grove and as soon as we know more we will share details and logistics.  This site will allow us to grow our full school model to host Kindergarten through 5th Grade with up to 425 students. The school site is located within a church building but the classroom size and the building size are much bigger and almost double the size of our current building.  We will be able to continue to serve our current student population with transportation.  We have a strong plan in place for retention and recruitment and  we will share that with parents in the coming weeks.    

We want to ensure transparency with our parents to inform you of this exciting news as we navigate next steps. We will hold a parent meeting on Thursday, April 6th at 6:00pm at MELA to discuss the new location, next steps, and answer any questions or concerns that you may have.  In the meantime, if you have any questions please reach out to Mrs. Mitchell at jmitchell@distinctiveschools.org

Thank you for all of your support and your continued commitment to MELA. We are so thrilled about this exciting next step for all of us and our MELA school. 

Thank you,
Scott Frauenheim
Vice President & Chief Operating Officer
Distinctive Schools

Andrew Parker
Executive Director of School Partnerships and Development
Distinctive Schools

Jennifer Mitchell
School Director