St. Paul Academy and Summit School
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| St. Paul Academy and Summit School | |
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| Established | SPA: 1900, Summit School: 1917, Merger: 1969 |
| School type | Private, day |
| Religious affiliation | None |
| Head of School | Bryn Roberts |
| Location | St. Paul, MN, USA |
| Campus | Two campuses in residential neighborhoods |
| Enrollment | 910 total 290 K-5 (Lower School) 240 6-8 (Middle School) 380 9-12 (Upper School) |
| Faculty | 55 for upper school |
| Average class size | 14 students |
| Student:teacher ratio |
7:1 |
| Average SAT scores (mid 50% ranges for 2007) |
590-710 cr. reading 600-700 math 590-700 writing |
| Athletics | 9 sports, 34 teams |
| Color(s) | Blue and gold |
| Mascot | Spartan |
| Homepage | www.spa.edu |
St. Paul Academy and Summit School (commonly known as SPA) is a college preparatory independent school in St. Paul, Minnesota for students in grades K-12.
The school was established through a merger in 1969 of St. Paul Academy, a school for boys, and Summit School, a school for girls. St. Paul Academy was founded in 1900 and Summit School in 1917. The school celebrated its centennial in 2000.[1]
Recent commencement speakers include Al Franken, Coretta Scott King, and Garrison Keillor.
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[edit] Campuses
The schools consists of two campuses: the Goodrich Campus and the Randolph Campus.
- The Goodrich Campus, site of the old Summit School for girls, is the current home of the Lower School (grades K-5, ~290 students) and contains the Sarah Converse Auditorium, home of SPA theater productions. It is located at 1150 Goodrich Avenue.
- The Randolph Campus, site of the old St. Paul Academy for boys, is the current home of the Middle School (grades 6-8, ~240 students) as well as the Upper School (grades 9-12, ~380 students) and contains SPA's Drake hockey arena. It is located at 1712 Randolph Avenue.
School hours are from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm, with exceptions for after-school activities. The school has great art programs, as well as sports and education.
[edit] Academic program
In the Upper School (Grades 9-12), SPA has a college-preparatory liberal arts curriculum.[2] The school offers international exchange programs for students in grades 10-12 with partner schools in France, Germany, Spain, and China.
Each year, the school sends several juniors to semester-away programs including CITYterm in New York, Oxbow School in California, Maine Coast Semester in Maine, and Rocky Mountain Semester in Colorado.
SPA has a laptop program in its Middle and Upper Schools whereby the school provides each student in 7th grade with a notebook computer and students in grades 8 through 10 must purchase one from the school.[3]
Harkness tables, oval wooden tables that seat 12-15 students, were integrated into most language, history, English, and some science classrooms beginning in 2005.[4]
[edit] Notable alumni
- F. Scott Fitzgerald attended the school from 1908-1911 until he was expelled for poor work. He was more interested in football than in academics.
- Steven Levitt led the quiz bowl team to nationals two years in a row, and his 2005 book Freakonomics is a New York Times bestseller.
- William Pedersen, partner in Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, is the lead architect on the Shanghai World Financial Center, which, when completed in 2007, will be one of the world's tallest buildings.
- Reynolds Guyer invented the Nerf children's toys.
- Tony Sanneh is a professional soccer player who has won two Major League Soccer Cups and also played every minute for the United States in the 2002 World Cup in Korea/Japan.
- Rebecca Jarvis is a financial reporter and a finalist on The Apprentice (Season 4)
- John Doar was a prominent civil rights attorney in the 1960s, who most notably defended James Meredith in his attempt to enroll in the then-segregated University of Mississippi.
- Karen Ashe is director of the Neurobiology of Alzheimer’s Disease Research Laboratory at the University of Minnesota
- Joan Mondale is the wife of former Vice-President Walter Mondale.
- Ann Bancroft was the first woman to successfully complete expeditions across the Arctic and Antarctic.
[edit] Trivia
- SPA's yearbook is named IBID.
- SPA's student-run newspaper is called The Rubicon, after the river in Italy. It has received the First Place in the Star Tribune's annual High School Newspaper Challenge Class AA for two years running (2005 and 2006).[5]
- SPA used to be referred to as "the Academy."
- The mascot is the Spartan. It was chosen in the 1960s because the first three letters of Spartan are the school's initials. The official colors are Blue and Gold. SPA won the right to use them from The Blake School in a football game nearly 100 years ago.
