Field Trip Sparks Conversation for Vision Team

On June 17, the Reimagine Rdale: Vision 2030 Team left the meeting room behind and hit the road for a full-day field trip across the Twin Cities metro area. The goal? To explore how school facilities in other districts have been designed or reimagined to meet evolving academic priorities and community needs.

Over the course of the day, the team toured four schools—each selected for its unique approach to aligning space with student learning. Throughout the trip, members engaged in reflective discussions to deepen their understanding of how learning environments shape experience, access, and outcomes for students.

Stops on the tour included:

• Shakopee High School
  A large, modern campus anchored in an academy model that promotes career-connected learning and hands-on pathways for students. Team members saw how dedicated spaces for engineering, health sciences, and other fields brought relevance to core instruction.

• Hamilton Ridge Elementary (Prior Lake)
  Designed from the ground up for collaboration and flexibility, this school showcased how learning spaces can foster creativity, movement, and small-group interaction—especially for younger students.

• White Bear Lake High School
  A newly renovated facility that merged two high schools into one cohesive, community-centered space. The visit illustrated how thoughtful design can unify a school community and reflect shared priorities.

• North High School (Minneapolis)
  A powerful example of how Career and Technical Education (CTE) spaces can be embedded in a neighborhood school. The team saw how North’s facilities support real-world skill development while affirming student identity and purpose.

On the bus, team members engaged in a series of structured activities:

• They revisited a school-ranking exercise from a previous meeting and reflected on how learning more about the schools changed their perceptions.
• They discussed what kinds of learning environments they believed support different instructional models—and how that showed up in the schools they visited.
• Most importantly, they began connecting what they’ve heard from the Robbinsdale community with what they saw on the road.

What’s Next

The insights from this day will directly inform the Vision Team’s upcoming work. At future meetings, members will dive deeper into the data, community feedback, and strategic scenarios that will lead to long-term recommendations.

This field trip marked a turning point—from exploring big ideas to envisioning what could be for Robbinsdale Area Schools. As one participant put it, “We’re not just planning buildings. We’re designing futures.”

About Reimagine Rdale: Vision 2030

The Reimagine Rdale: Vision 2030 initiative is built around three key components: the Vision 2030 Team, a community engagement process, and a districtwide survey. The Vision 2030 Team, made up of community members, students, staff, and district leaders, will collaborate to develop a forward-thinking roadmap for Rdale. This effort will align with the district’s strategic pillars—Academic Achievement, Student Engagement and Wellness, Collaboration and Partnership, and Staff Investment and Impact—ensuring that future decisions are rooted in the district’s mission to inspire and educate all learners.