Spring Lake Park, Minn. (June 29, 2025)—At its June 29 meeting, the Minnesota Conference Board of Trustees voted a plan in response to the financial challenges facing Maplewood Academy. These decisions are intended to stabilize the school’s short-term operations and launch a broader, collaborative process to secure the long-term future of an Adventist high school education for students statewide.
As part of this plan, the Board voted to establish a special working committee to gather accurate data for making recommendations and decisions regarding Maplewood’s future. To inform this work, the committee will reach out to a broad range of stakeholders—including students, parents, alumni, staff, and church members—through surveys, interviews, focus groups, and one-on-one conversations, between August and October of this year. This committee will turn over the aggregated data to a second, special committee to make recommendations for the Board of Trustees to review by the end of October.
Maplewood Academy has been part of the Conference’s mission since 1888, when the school was founded to prepare young people for lives of faith and service. For more than 135 years, the Conference has remained deeply committed to Maplewood’s success. That legacy continues to shape our actions today. However, the rising cost of operating a boarding school and long-term enrollment challenges have created financial issues that cannot be addressed with short-term solutions alone. It is important for us to consider how to address a number of significant systemic challenges that are also being faced by our sister conferences across the NAD, for example, changes in parental attitudes towards Adventist education and towards sending their children away from home to study. Unfortunately, such challenges have led to a number of Adventist academies being forced to close. This is something we want to avoid.
Since the May 18 financial update, we have been encouraged by the early response from alumni and members. Pledges and donations are already helping reduce the academy’s debt and giving it some much-needed breathing room. We are so grateful for their significant and generous support. This funding, paired with the Board’s actions, provides the time needed for strategic planning and action.
We understand that this process brings a mix of emotions. Some feel hopeful about the potential this moment represents. Others are asking questions about priorities, identity, and the path ahead. We are listening, and we are committed to approaching this next chapter with humility, prayer, and a willingness to learn together.
The next step will be for the working committee to partner with an external consultant and implement a constituency-wide survey. When you receive the survey, please take the time to respond. We need your voice and your feedback.
The decisions made today reflect a desire to honor Maplewood’s legacy while responsibly planning for the future of Adventist education in Minnesota. We remain rooted in our mission and committed to ensuring that whatever comes next is saturated in prayer, shaped by God’s guidance, and informed by the voices, values, and hopes of our community.
We invite your continued prayers, engagement, and support as we move forward together.
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The Minnesota Conference of Seventh-day Adventists oversees the work of the Seventh-day Adventist Church across Minnesota. Our mission is to help people realize they are accepted in Jesus Christ, and come to know, love, serve, and share Him. Through our churches, schools, and ministries, we offer a variety of programs including prekindergarten through twelfth grade education, disaster response, health and wellness resources, and opportunities for spiritual growth. For more information, visit www.mnsda.com or call 763-424-8923.
