Meadowbrook Elementary makes space for students

Every morning Meadowbrook Elementary School Principal Dr. Greta Evans-Becker stands outside the front doors to greet students as they arrive.

This is no small task. Meadowbrook currently has 761 students enrolled, with about half coming from the surrounding neighborhood, half from open enrollment from other cities or other schools in the Hopkins district. The student travelling the farthest comes all the way from Albertville, over 30 minutes away.

The largest areas represented in the open enrollment are Robbinsdale, Minneapolis, and St. Louis Park. These students are placed where there are spots, but neighborhood students always come first.

“We will not turn away anybody from the neighborhood, because this is their home school,” Dr. Evans-Becker said. “But we will have to place outside of the district people on a waiting list if we have to.”

There is a 27 student cap for each class, and each incoming grade will have five classes each. If each class were completely filled in every grade, Meadowbrook would cap at 945 students. However, at their current enrollment (about 200 less), creative solutions have already been put in place.

One of these solutions is a new wing that has been added to the school that houses preschool and some third grade classes. The wing actually used to be a separate building, but was connected by a tunnel in 2013.

“Meadowbrook is very popular. People choose to come here. They have enabled us by expanding our building to accommodate a lot of the people who want to come here,” Evans-Becker said.

Another way that Meadowbrook deals with the large number of students is by being creative with the space they do have. For example, the space that used to be two handwashing sinks now holds two small teaching rooms.

Meadowbrook, according to Evans-Becker, has a great community feel, even if half of the kids aren’t coming from the surrounding community. The parents that the school attracts have often toured multiple schools before Meadowbrook, so they are very involved with the school in many ways once they’re there.

“We have tons of very involved parents from the outside, plus the involved parents from the neighborhood. It makes quite a community of involved families at Meadowbrook,” said Dr. Evans-Becker.

Evans-Becker sites the location as one of the biggest draws for students open-enrolling. Being located minutes from Downtown Minneapolis allows parents who work in the city to drop students at school on their way to work.

“Besides great academics and community, we have the great location to go with it,” Evans-Becker said.

After Meadowbrook, the next biggest school is Alice Smith Elementary, with 553 students. Even West Junior High doesn’t reach the enrollment Meadowbrook has, topping off at 692 students.

However, Meadowbrook’s impressive size in the context of the rest of Hopkins is merely average in the other area schools. If Meadowbrook were in the Minnetonka district, it would actually be a smaller school in comparison to the other elementaries.

Even with its size, Meadowbrook is taking large steps to continue the growth it has seen. To Dr. Evans-Becker, there seems to be no issue with the situation the school is in.

“I don’t think I’m worried about [the growth]. It’s exciting!” Evans-Becker said.