Posted by Kelly Salwei

Josh Swanson - Eden Prairie Schools Superintendent

EPAM Rotary’s own Dr. Josh Swanson gave us an update on the accomplishments of the district over the last year including straight A’s across the board on the statewide Niche Report. EP was the only district to have straight A’s. As a result of support of the community and taxpayers, the district has been able to lower class sizes and close gaps in academics across the board. EPHS offers 277 courses including 20 AP courses. In 2019, 733 students took AP exams and 35% left with at least one score of 3 or higher enabling them to earn 1,215 credits which equate to $822,798 in public school tuition or over $5,000,000 in private school tuition. Sixteen students are national merit scholars and three students earned perfect ACT scores. Josh thanked the community for the support of Designing Pathways 2019 and they are already working on the improvements to Central Middle School which were a large part of the program.
 
 

Announcements

  • Early reminder that we will be at Feed my Starving Children on March 3rd .
  • Pastor Rod reported the sad news of Bruce Hutchins wife succumbing to a yearlong battle with cancer.
  • John Crudele shared a thank you from Bloomington/EP Meals on Wheels
 

Spotlight on Bob Starr

Bob was born in Youngstown Ohio the third of six children. His father ran a soft drink bottling company. Bob said he had three “dream jobs” including working in father’s bottling company, IRS agent in Rochester and his stint in public accounting with Coopers and Lybrand which later merged into Price Waterhouse Coopers in 1998. Bob retired in 2011 and still prepares tax returns and serves on the board of Northeast Bank. Bob met his wife in a laundromat in Rochester and they have three children. Two of their children are in accounting profession and the other is a freelance writer for business journals. They have one grandchild and expecting another.
 
 

Happy Fines

Mark Weber reported that EP Community Foundation was assisting last weeks speaker with their non-profit status. Jenifer Loon shared sad news of passing of former EPAM Rotarian Steve Tasler and happier news that her daughter will return to the Twin Cities for her medical school Rotations
 

Visitors

Ricky Arteiro - Exchange Student
Jennifer Langhart - Prospective Member
Kurts Stelnieks - Prospective Member
Tom Poul - Prospective Member
Kevin Gao and Kayla Keddie - Student Interns