Students in our community have many experiences in our halls and a few have not. There was a 30% increase in the Freshman class, and around 2% increase of students in the following grades. Four students have shared their background their previous school and how they feel about their new environment here at SPA. Junior Gus Grunau went to WhiteFish Bay high school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 9th grader Charlie Keillor went to Oak Hill. Junior Katie Lose attended to Unionville High School in Pennsylvania. Sophomore Olivia McCauley attended Mayo Clinic high school in Rochester, Minnesota

A range of reasons can cause a student to leave or return to their home and schools. For junior Gus Grunau, it was relocation “I moved from Milwaukee, Wisconsin,” he said.

Charlie Keillor was already in the Twin Cities, but for 9th grade, he had to find a new school: “They didn’t have a high school,” he said. Keillor attended Oak Hill through middle school.

For some, coming to St. Paul Academy and Summit School is a return to a familiar setting.  Although junior Katie Lose attended Unionville High School in Pennsylvania, she went to St. Paul Academy through grade school. “My parents moved back to Minnesota because of their jobs,” she said.

There are those who make a choice to leave parents behind in order to get a better education. This is true for sophomore Olivia McCauley, who left SPA to attended Mayo Clinic High School in Rochester before coming back to Saint Paul and moving in with her grandma:

“The school was really bad, and that’s why I came back here because I went here [SPA] for middle school I had a understanding of how things were going to be here,” McCauley said.

“There were two main issues that really bothered me at Mayo. The first was the lack of academic depth that was covered in the courses. I am retaking chemistry this year because I learned what we were doing there this year in about a month. The second issue was there were many social problems in the school; Rochester is an incredibly conservative community, and that is fine, but they force their opinions on everybody else. It is extremely hierarchical because it is a one-business town, so if you are a doctor’s kid and your parents worked at Mayo you were at the top of the social pyramid, and I just hated the culture at Mayo,” she said. Most of the students who their reasons for moving said they moved.

Transitioning to a new school can be hard, with both academic, activity, and social expectations

“I see myself liking SPA as a school environment in general, but I think it may be too early to tell because I still haven’t made really close friends, like I had back home,” Grunau said.

On the contrary, Keillor said he left few people behind: “I do like this school better because my other school was really small and I didn’t get to know as many people,”  he said.

Social connection is not what makes Lose feel connected here: “I like SPA better than my old school because the classes are more interesting, and the teachers actually try and help you,” she said.

McCauley feels like she made the right decision, even though she learned something important after being away from SPA for a year: “I did not like my experience in Rochester, but it taught me a lot about what I wanted in life. Even though I would rather have not had that experience, I am glad that I did,” she said.