School 411: Breck School

By Nyasia Arradondo and Nyasia Arradondo of Breck Upper School

Mascot: Mustang

Type: Private

Location: 123 Ottawa Avenue North, Minneapolis

Website: www.breckschool.org

Population of upper school: 395

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

Financial aid: 18 percent of the student body received financial aid in the 2008-2009 school year.

Diversity: More than 29 percent of Breck’s total enrollment is students of color.

Personality: Breck is a private, Episcopal, college-preparatory school that excels in its academics but also provides students with other opportunities in extracurricular activities such as sports and fine arts.

Breck is broken down into three parts: a lower school, middle school, and upper school. This is the equivalent of an elementary school, junior high and high school.

Special Programs: Breck is really into its sense of community inside its walls and connecting students to the community outside its walls.

Every week on Wednesdays for 75 minutes, students go to more than 30 sites throughout the Twin Cities and volunteer at places such as Mount Olivet Day Services’ adult and childcare, La Créche Early Childhood Centers Inc. and Head Start.

Before graduation, each student has to do 20 hours of community service on his or her own, not including the service that is done every Wednesday.

Traditions: May program is a Breck tradition that allows juniors and seniors to participate in business internships at General Mills, Target, and Best Buy, volunteer projects at the American Red Cross, Lucy Laney Elementary School, Tubman or an educational trip such as going to Panama, China, and France.

Freshman and sophomores take required courses such as English, math and science, but they also get the opportunity to take elective mini-courses on campus like marimba, ultimate Frisbee, and project runway.

It is required to give a senior speech to graduate from Breck. This is the time when seniors are given the opportunity to tell what they’ve learned during their time at Breck, acknowledge the people who have helped them through their journey, and teach the underclassmen life lessons.

During homecoming there are a few traditions that are observed. The first recognized homecoming tradition begins with Spirit Week. One day of Spirit Week is color day. The seniors get to wear rainbow while the freshman, sophomores and juniors will wear dull colors.

There are four hallways that are student hallways for each grade level, senior to freshman. Seniors, for homecoming, always decorate their hallway a certain theme that only the seniors know.

The junior hallway is directly above the freshman hallway so they do a thing called “fishing for freshman” when they tie a dollar bill to a string and watch the freshman try to jump for it. A freshman rarely gets hold of the dollar.

Senior weekend is when all the seniors have a sleep over on the Breck campus and talk, play games, and just have fun.

Biggest Sport: The biggest sport at Breck is definitely Boys’ Hockey. In addition to Boys’ Hockey, the Breck School swim and tennis teams won the state championship tournament in 2009 and Girls’ Hockey placed second in the state tournament in 2008.

Challenges: The biggest challenge for Breck in the upper school is definitely the lack of diversity because most of the minorities are in the lower school. For students, it is the amount of homework they receive, which is roughly around four hours of homework a night.