{"id":22065,"date":"2022-08-25T08:01:42","date_gmt":"2022-08-25T13:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/?p=22065"},"modified":"2022-08-25T12:47:45","modified_gmt":"2022-08-25T17:47:45","slug":"welcome-to-mpa-patti-meras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/2022\/08\/25\/welcome-to-mpa-patti-meras\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to MPA, Patti Meras!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/em>What position will you be holding at MPA?<\/strong>
\nMiddle School Dean<\/p>\n

From what school\/organization are you coming?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nGeorgetown Day School<\/p>\n

Tell us about your education and past experience.\u00a0<\/strong>
\nI have been a middle school English and social studies teacher for the majority of my career, and I hold a BA in English and an MA in Special Education. I began in southern California in 1996 teaching English in public schools. In 2005, my native MN called me back (as anyone who has left MN knows, it has a way of bringing you back). Shortly after returning, I joined MPA. I spent the next 15 years embedded in the joy and delightful quirkiness that is the MPA middle school community before embarking on a new adventure. For the past two years, I was the Middle School English Department Chair at Georgetown Day School in Washington, DC; then I lived abroad in Germany. Once again, I returned to my native MN, and I am so happy to be back in this welcoming community.<\/p>\n

What did you find appealing about MPA?<\/strong>
\nThe first day I toured the halls of MPA in 2005, an upper school student looked up from their computer with a genuine smile and greeted by name the 4th grade teacher who was walking with me. I immediately knew this was a special place. MPA is home. It is my village. My colleagues, my students, and the families make this a magical place that celebrates the individual and nurtures creativity, curiosity, and collaboration. I am challenged and supported every day.<\/p>\n

What’s your big dream?<\/strong>
\nI want to participate in the McMurdo Station Antarctic Austral Summer program (If you have not seen A Year on Ice, go watch it).<\/p>\n

What are you (and your family, if you so choose) passionate about?<\/strong>
\nI am passionate about serving others, and I want to instill this passion in those around me. When my children were school-aged, we would spend our summers overseas working at English immersion camps, volunteering in orphanages in Peru, working with youth in Nicaragua, and other such service opportunities. As a member of the MS community, I have loved being a part of many service projects and activities over the years. It is a joy to witness our young people giving of themselves and volunteering their time while expanding their worldview and learning about perspective taking, compassion, and empathy.<\/p>\n

What’s a fun fact about you that our community would love to know?<\/strong>
\nI am a Peanuts fanatic and Snoopy is my favorite. You can usually find me with a Snoopy coffee mug.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What position will you be holding at MPA? Middle School Dean From what school\/organization are you coming?\u00a0 Georgetown Day School Tell us about your education and past experience.\u00a0 I have been a middle school English and social studies teacher for the majority of my career, and I hold a BA in English and an MA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":22067,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,28,24,29,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-school","category-current-families","category-featured-posts","category-homepage","category-middle-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22065"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22105,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22065\/revisions\/22105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}