Saint Paul Academy and Summit School

By Leah Sorensen and Leah Sorensen

Students discuss around a Harkness table at Saint Paul Academy. The tables are meant to facilitate discussion and learning.

Photo By: Leah Sorensen

SPA is a competitive school where students value learning. There are a lot of workaholics, but a lot of laid-back students as well.

Mascot: Spartan

Type: Private

Location: 1712 Randolph Ave. St. Paul, Minn. 55105

Website: www.spa.edu

Population of upper school: 355

Tuition for upper school (2008-2009): $22,410

Financial aid: 16 percent of students receive financial aid

Diversity: 64 students of color (19 percent), of those 64:
— 18 are African-American
— 37 are Asian American
— eight are Latino
— and one is American Indian

Personality: SPA is a competitive school where students value learning. There are a lot of workaholics, but a lot of laid-back students as well. Students are opinionated and thoughtful, but sometimes very cynical.

Special Programs: The school uses Harkness tables to encourage discussion, student participation, and collective learning. Harkness tables are oval, wooden tables that seat around 12 people. They have pullout wooden slabs for test taking.

For junior and senior year at SPA, English courses are semester-long electives, with six or so options each semester. Also during senior year, history and social studies courses are done as semester-long electives, with options like History of Law, Psychology, Honors U.S. History, and World Religions. Most classes at the school are full-year courses. Also, at many other area schools there are fewer options, if any options, as to what English and History courses a students chooses to take.

SPA also uses a system of D-days and D-nights. Every class has a day of the week on which homework is not assigned, called a D-day. For example, every Tuesday is a science D-day, so no homework is given that night. All classes except the sciences also have D-nights, which come weekly or every other week. English, for example never meets on Fridays because Fridays are English D-days.

As seniors, every student is required to give a speech, about 5-6 minutes in length, to the entire school. Seniors also complete an independent project, often some sort of internship, and do community service during May of their twelfth grade year.

The senior project at SPA is a month-long endeavor. Examples of senior projects include: interning at law firms, conducting research in laboratories, or teaching at an elementary school in California. As a part of the senior project, a certain number of hours of community service must be completed.

Traditions: Being a senior is a pretty big deal at SPA. It kicks off with a weekend retreat in April of junior year. On the retreat students are grouped with people outside of their friends for “dyads,” which are half-hour talks with another person.

The retreat also includes class forums where students share opinions on how their class is viewed and how to make improvements as leaders during their senior year.

After the graduating seniors leave campus at the beginning of May to complete their senior projects, juniors are given junior-senior privileges, which allow them to leave campus when they don’t have class.

When senior year finally rolls around, students have access to a senior lounge with couches, tables, and music. Lowerclassmen only have use of the benches in the hallways and the tables in the library. The senior lounge is a unique thing because most schools don’t have a special room just for seniors.

Biggest Sport: While SPA takes a stronger focus on academics than sports, the boys’ tennis program is probably the biggest sport. The team has a long history of individual and team state championships.

Challenges: Diversity — racial or economic — isn’t great at SPA, but the school is working on changing that. For students, the homework load is probably the biggest challenge. Students take their studies seriously and have many a late night studying.