{"id":30400,"date":"2026-06-12T15:29:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T20:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/?p=30400"},"modified":"2026-06-16T15:33:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T20:33:54","slug":"welcome-to-mpa-mrs-erika-beernink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/2026\/06\/12\/welcome-to-mpa-mrs-erika-beernink\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to MPA, Mrs. Erika Beernink!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30404 alignright img-responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/nclhx5yj.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Erika-Beernink-Photo-MPA-wp.png\" alt=\"Erika Beernink\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" \/>We are thrilled to announce that Mrs. Erika Beernink will continue serving as a Lower School assistant permanently at MPA. Get to know Erika better below.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Tell us about your education and past experience.<\/strong><br \/>\nBefore joining MPA&#8217;s Lower School to help this past fall, I helped coach MPA&#8217;s Middle School Robotics Team. Prior to that, I volunteered at my children&#8217;s previous schools, practiced Estate Planning and Probate law, worked in investment management, management consulting, and, a really long time ago, taught ballet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What did you find appealing about MPA?<br \/>\n<\/strong>When we came to our first family visit, I was immediately attracted to MPA&#8217;s health as an institution. Everything from student outcomes to facilities to the strategic plan to the benefits for faculty felt well-tended and cared for. That kind of health supports a strong and vibrant community, something that I wanted to be part of.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><strong>What lasting impact do you plan to have on MPA and its students?<br \/>\n<\/strong>Strong communication skills! Whether a student is picking up copies for their classroom teacher or calling home to find out the afternoon&#8217;s plan, I will always be there to help our students, their families, and our teachers stay connected and get the answers they need.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s your big dream?<\/strong><br \/>\nTo live abroad long enough to deeply understand the culture, language, and beliefs of a different part of our planet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are you passionate about?<\/strong><br \/>\nMy family loves food and travel. Sharing great food while traveling<em>\u2014<\/em>that&#8217;s the best!<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s a fun fact about you that our community would love to know?<\/strong><br \/>\nI am an only child originally from California, and have lived in six different states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are thrilled to announce that Mrs. Erika Beernink will continue serving as a Lower School assistant permanently at MPA. Get to know Erika better below.\u00a0 Tell us about your education and past experience. Before joining MPA&#8217;s Lower School to help this past fall, I helped coach MPA&#8217;s Middle School Robotics Team. Prior to that, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":30403,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,10027,24,29,9,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-families","category-faculty-and-staff-experience","category-featured-posts","category-homepage","category-lower-school","category-my-mpa-experience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30400","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\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30400"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30407,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30400\/revisions\/30407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}