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Media Contact:
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Clark Opdahl
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Governor Pawlenty and Minnesota’s Education Commissioner Honor Local Attorney For Promoting Education in Minnesota

December 17, 2009 Minneapolis, MN – The law firm of Henson & Efron, P.A. is pleased to announce partner Christopher Burns has received two honors for his work as a board member and past chair of the Minnesota Academic Excellence Foundation (MAEF). MAEF is a Governor appointed board of business leaders and educators. The goal of the MAEF is to foster academic excellence. MAEF does this by indentifying and presenting awards to outstanding students, educators, and supporters of education in the state.

The Certificates of Recognition/Appreciation, one from Governor Pawlenty and one from Minnesota Education Commissioner, Alice Seagren, honor Burns’s valued and distinguished service as a board member for the MAEF, promoting and recognizing academic excellence in Minnesota elementary and secondary students, schools and communities.

At the time of his first appointment in 2004, the MAEF was in a state of shock having just lost funding from the legislature and several of its members. Burns helped to reinvent the Foundation by inviting influential, intelligent business professionals to join him and remaining board members to help meet the operational needs of the MAEF while also expanding its base of ideas and backgrounds.

While on the board, Burns chaired the Board and led its efforts to develop and create the School Spotlight Award. Now in its 5th year, this award shines a spotlight on a school’s curriculum, instruction, assessment, and staff development that successfully address student needs. “It occurred to the Board that if a child had a great teacher, that made a difference. If a child had more than one great teacher but a great school, the children in that school would have a foundation for future academic excellence.” Accordingly, MAEF established this award program to identify schools that meet rigorous criteria demonstrating academic excellence through significant gains in student achievement, especially those schools that are “beating the odds.”

An additional benefit of the award is that past award winners have been contacted by other similarly situated schools for ideas on how they might model what the winning school has done. The board is now looking for a way to foster this communication and will be talking with the Minnesota Department of Education to try to find innovative ways to encourage communication and mentoring among schools.

Burns’s second term on the MAEF board ends in January and he has declined an appointment to a third term.

Henson & Efron, P.A., a mid-sized law firm with more than 30 attorneys, is located in Minneapolis. The firm is known for its excellence in delivering a full range of legal services to individuals and to businesses of all sizes. Henson & Efron is a member of Legal Netlink Alliance, an international consortium of law firms providing integrated, cost-effective, high-quality legal services to clients around the world. More information can be found at: www.hensonefron.com .

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