Coach Caught, Traveling Tragedy and Plymouth's Peace Corps Member: Pick of Our Patches

Also in this week's wrap-up: A beloved principal gets rewarded, Menards makes a grand entrance and Edina pets have a new haven.

Editor’s Note: Every week we will bring you a sampling of stories from Patch sites in the west metro: Edina, Golden Valley, Hopkins, Lake Minnetonka, Maple Grove, Plymouth, Richfield, Fridley, St. Louis Park and St. Michael. (Click on the headline to read the full story.) Hill-Murray Football Coach Arrested in Fridley for Allegedly Soliciting Prostitution Mark Mauer was one of 19 men caught in a police sting operation in Fridley Tuesday Golden Valley Officials Concerned About Upcoming Bottineau Meeting In a letter sent to members of the Hennepin County Board and Metropolitan Council, Mayor Shep Harris asked for clarification regarding the purpose of the upcoming Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board’s community meeting. Menards Announces …

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Beloved St. Michael-Albertville Principal Recognized as One of State's Best

Jennifer Kelley, head of St. Michael-Albertville Middle School East, has been named Met Life/NASSP Principal of the Year for Minnesota. And for those that know her, it's easy to see why.

To understand Jennifer Kelly's dedication to her students, one only has to look at the "event" she made for her WEB (Where Everyone Belongs) students' annual party.  To kill some time between stops on an evening full of activity, she invited more than two dozen eighth-graders to her home, and survived.  But the proof is also in her numbers at St. Michael-Albertville Middle School East. More than 85 percent of students here are involved in some sort of activitiy. Every actitity offered has 100 percent participation. More than 87 percent of all students are proficient or exceeding proficiency on state standardized exams. And the school's trimester honor roll is often a mile long.  For all of those reasons, and more, Kelly was recently named …

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St. Michael-Albertville East Kids Carry out Final Mission

A special night for eighth-grade WEB leaders included a top secret mission in their future home.

Imagine being an eighth-grader and getting to sneak in to your future high school, making your way to the principal’s desk, trying on his sport coat and leaving a special, colorful message on the wall. A few eighth-graders from St. Michael-Albertville Middle School East got to do just that a couple of weeks ago, as they bid farewell to the WEB (Where Everyone Bleongs) program via a year-end bash organized by team leaders and principal Jennifer Kelly. “It was a chance for them to celebrate what they’d done, and we reached out to some organizations that were just a big help. It turned out to be a very memorable night,” Kelly said. First, the event–designed as a “lock out, lock in,” was given a bus from Don’s Bus Service in Albertville, the …

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Woman Faces Multiple Charges after Threats Against St. Michael Teacher

An Alexandria woman who was once a student under a current St. Michael-Albertville social worker has been arrested and charged with making terroristic threats.

The phone threats against a St. Michael-Albertville Middle School East teacher and, in fact, the entire school, have resulted in multiple felony charges against the teacher’s former student, according to paperwork filed in Wright County District Court yesterday. Arrested and charged is 22-year-old Ariel Stephanie Rose Koenig, a resident at the New Beginnings Group Home in Alexandria, MN. Koenig, according to the criminal complaint, placed multiple threatening calls to an STMA Middle School East social worker, beginning on Sunday, Feb. 5. The calls grew more frequent, and according to the charges, more serious. Between the hours of 8 and 9 p.m. Monday, Feb. 6, Koenig told the teacher she was “going down.” She also said “she was going to …

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Editor's Notebook

Middle Schools Teach Importance of Belonging

A new program dubbed "WEB," or Where Everyone Belongs, is putting eighth-graders in charge as mentors for the two middle school buildings' fifth-graders.

St. Michael-Albertville's two middle schools, West and East, are trying to build "positive connections" between its oldest residents and the schools' newcomers.  "It's an effort to create a welcoming environment for the fifth-graders, focusing on assisting them in transitioning from the elementary school to a middle school setting," said Jennifer Kelly, principal at St. Michael Middle School East.  The eighth-graders are called WEB leaders, or "Where Everyone Belongs." They're taken under the wings of advisors like Erik Ditlevson, Jessica Buskey, Jodi Vanderheiden and Ann Henkes-Anderson, who in turn teach them how to be nice to the new guys.  Leaders in the "WEB" effort have been grouped now into a program called KORT, which is an …

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