All in one
Book primer
Students wow with one-act plays
Reader callout: Best books read in 2011
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PRIOR LAKE
SATURDAY, JANUARY 14, 2012
$1
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AMERICAN Teachers to get 1-percent raise Two-year contract includes no salary increase for current year BY MERYN FLUKER mfluker@swpub.com
PHOTO BY MERYN FLUKER / REPRINTS AT PHOTOS.PLAMERICAN.COM
Students at the highest-income table not only took the longest time eating their meals, but they also spent the most time splitting and sharing food. Many of the diners even had leftovers. Their peers were divided between two lower-income groups, with the majority of guests in the lowest-income class. Environmental science teacher Lee Korby shared the story of a student in the lowest-income group, who complained that the portion of rice and water was “not a meal,” even though Korby had promised that everyone who attended would be fed a meal. “For most places in the world, this is considered a meal,” she countered.
‘Tonight, they eat like the world’ Hunger banquet brings global lessons close to home BY MERYN FLUKER mfluker@swpub.com
P
rior Lake High School’s cafeteria functioned a s a sn apshot of the world on Monday evening. Close to 75 environmental science students, juniors and seniors, dined on rice, beans or lasagna to raise awareness of global food disparities. That’s the idea behind the school’s first Oxfam America Hunger Banquet.
Guests were assigned to tables in one of three colors – purple, blue or green. Their dinner portions would be determined by the colored placards on their tables. The purple group, the highest-income diners, would get lasagna, cookies, salad and juice. The blue group would get only rice, beans and juice, while the green group – the lowest-income attendees – would get only rice and water. “Tonight, they eat like the world,” said environ-
mental education teacher Lee Korby. Korby and her Advanced Placement counterpart Sam Steinberg hosted the dinner alongside Cara Rieckenberg, the district’s environmental education coordinator. The trio decided to have the event as a way to make the ideas their classes are exploring resonate with students. Their current unit focuses on how food impacts physical health and the way food production affects the environment.
Attendees saw a short video from Oxfam America, a group devoted to combating worldwide hunger and poverty, before watching a video message from K A R E -11 meteorolog ist Sven Sundgaard, which he fi lmed in Rio de Janeiro ex pressly for Monday’s event. Korby and Steinberg read from an Oxfam America script, detailing the struggles many malnourished people face.
Hunger to page 5 ®
Suspect confesses to robbery of U.S. Bank branch, police say BY ALEX HALL ahall@swpub.com
Two months after a man with a head cold robbed the U.S. Bank branch in Prior Lake, police have located the suspect in Polk County Jail in Iowa and secured a confession, according to Prior Lake Police Detective Chris Olson. The department received a tip that the 42-year-old Arden Hills man committed the November robbery and that he was already in custody in Polk
County for allegedly robbing another U.S. Bank branch in Iowa, Olson said. In the Nov. 5 Prior Lake case, a man entered U.S. Bank at 15830 Franklin Trail and approached the teller counter while speaking on a cell phone. T he ma n dema nded c ash, although he didn’t brandish a weapon or insinuate he had one, and after obtaining an undisclosed amount of money, he fled from the bank on foot
Robbery to page 3 ®
SUBMITTED PHOTO
The FBI provided this bank surveillance photo of the suspect in the Nov. 5 robbery of a U.S. Bank branch in Prior Lake.
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T h e c o n t r a c t ’s fi rst year means an added cost of $460,107 for District 719, averaging out to an extra $1,125 per teacher. The second year of the tentative agreement, which the union ratified with 92-percent support on Dec. 14, includes a 1-percent salary hike for teachers along with movement through the salary schedule. That’s an increased cost of $802,757 for the district and averages out to an extra $1,962 per teacher. M at t Mon s , d i rector of human resources, called the contract “the right end result” both for the district and its employees. The contract does not include any benefit increases for the current school year. Director of Business Affairs Julie Cink said she anticipates “a small, if any, increase” to district he a lt h i n su r a nc e costs in 2012-13.
Teachers in the Prior Lake-Savage Area School District will get a 1-percent raise in 2012-13, but no increase for the current school year, Deb under an ag reeJohnson ment approved by the School Board on Monday. The collective bargaining agreement with the Prior LakeSavage Educ ation Association, the local teachers’ union, will go into ef fect retroactively beginning July 1, 2011. Matt Teachers will reMons ceive pay commensu r at e w it h wh at would have accompanied their “steps and lanes,” the terms used for tenure and adva nc e d c ou r s e work that determine teacher salary increases. As teachers stay in school districts longer and Lee work toward graduShimek ate degrees, their salaries grow – unless frozen through a collective bargaining agreement.
Teachers to page 3 ®
Vikings in Shakopee? Southwest metro stadium plan unveiled BY SHANNON FIECKE sfiecke@swpub.com
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As other proposals for a new Vikings stadium faced increasing scrutiny and the governor put out a Thursday deadline for all plans, Shakopee’s new Mayor Brad Tabke made a call to SavetheVikes. org founder Cory Merrifield. Two days later, a plan was hatched to bring the Vikings to Shakopee. On Saturday, the pair huddled over a table at Perkins restaurant for hours with the Shakopee Chamber of Commerce president, Assistant Senate Majority Leader Claire Robling of Jordan and Rep. Michael Beard of Shakopee. “Everyone thinks we’re too late in the game, but once we started looking at it and got into the fine details, it made a lot of sense,” Tabke said. “Six million people
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come to Shakopee every year, and we handle all those people with ease.” On Wednesday, the group unveiled its plan to locate a 75,000-seat stadium on the 130 -acre site kitty-corner from Valleyfair, which contains the shelved ADC Telecommunications building. “We believe we have the best site that will be the easiest to develop for the Minnesota Vikings and is the cheapest cost and second-largest land area in acreage,” Tabke told the State Capitol press corps.
Vikings to page 3 ®
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