Prospective Families
Our School and Community
Cedar Park STEM Elementary School strives to be a national leader in delivering STEM instruction. Our great school is comprised of hard working students and dedicated staff. We value our partnerships with families and are grateful to our volunteer community, all of whom help our school achieve excellence.
District 196 STEM Pathway
Cedar Park STEM is part of our district's unique STEM Pathway. Cedar Park and Echo Park Elementary Schools feed into Valley Middle School of STEM and then to Apple Valley High Schoo's STEM program. Your family can choose to have your children be immersed in STEM from Kindergarten through twelfth grade potentially.
Check out Cedar Park's "Month of Code" computer science initiative for all K-5th students!
We are part of the exciting STEM Pathway at District 196. Learn more about this program.
Cedar Park's Awards:
Cedar Park Elementary STEM School is very proud of our local, state and national awards since we have become a STEM magnet school in 2009.
- Cedar Park Elementary STEM School became the first STEM elementary in the history of MN in 2009.
- Cedar Park earned the Magnet Schools of America School of Excellence Award in 2016.
- Cedar Park received The MN School of Excellence Award in '13-'14, '14-'15, '15-'16 demonstrating improvement on state tests, leadership, vision, and community engagement.
- Principal John Garcia was named 2012 Region V Magnet School of America Principal of the Year and the 2014 Science and Math Principal of the Year by the Minnesota Elementary School’s Principal Association.
- In 2014, Cedar Park was designated a MN Agriculture in the Classroom Teacher Champion School. Cedar Park staff have presented nationally, including teachers who presented at the National Science Teachers Association Conference in 2015 and 2016.
- For the past three years, science teams in grades 3-5 won top honors at the U of M’s Entomology Fair. A fourth grade student was the 2015 Minnesota winner of the Bonnie Patch Cabbage Growing competition, and received a $1,000 scholarship.
- In 2016, two students were honored at a MN Twins game, for their “Breaking Barriers” essay submissions, which highlighted Jackie Robinson’s values and overcoming personal barriers.
- Cedar Park earned Magnet Schools of America School of Excellence: '13-'14, '14-'15, '15-'16, '18-'19, '19-'20.
- Cedar Park received Magnet Schools of America School of Distinction: '16-'17
- Cedar Park won the KABOOM! playground grant with Toro & MN Vikings as funding partners: 2017
- Cedar Park received 2017-2018 SciGirls CODE grant for a unique, prestigious after school computer science program for 5th girls (see video on side section).
- Our SciGirls Code Video (see side video) by PBS won the National Science Foundation Award STEM for All Video Contest!
- Cedar Park received Magnet Schools of America 2019 School of Excellence!
- Cedar Park received Magnet Schools of America 2020 School of Excellence!
Check out & follow Cedar Park on both Facebook, Twitter & Instagram to get real-time updates on our STEM projects, events and celebrations!
Check out our STEM Tech Multimedia K-5th Projects!