My name is Anna Ly. My position is a health assistant. Pronouns are she/her.

Q: What did you do, or where did you work before coming to SPA?

A: I worked at Abbott Northwestern Alina Health. I was a nursing assistant.

Q: How did you hear about SPA, or how did you decide on coming to SPA?

A: I just heard about SPA on the internet, and I came here because I wanted to change from the hospital.

Q: What was your first impression of SPA?

A: It’s intriguing. It reminds me a lot of my old school. I went to Holy Angels, it’s a very similar vibe, but [SPA is] a little more modern.

Q: What do you like to do in your free time?

A: I like to eat, and I like to sleep and I like to go out.

Q: What is your go-to restaurant or cuisine?

A: Ichiban. [It’s] sushi. Pretty good, all you can eat, especially.

Q: Who’s your favorite artist, or what is your favorite song?

A: Probably Drake right now, and then my favorite song is probably “Heavenly Father” by Isaiah Rashad.

Q: What is a fun fact about you?

A: I’m double-jointed.

Q: What is something you want students to know about you?

A: They could come in and say hi.

My name is Jack Breen, or Mr. Breen. I’m the new jazz band director, so I am teaching jazz band and doing some stuff with the winds for orchestra. I use he/him pronouns.

Q: What did you do or where did you work before coming to SPA?

A: I spent a year in St. Paul schools as a band director for a middle school, and then taught [jazz band] at Hopkins High School, [jazz band at] Central High School, and [jazz band at] Capitol Hill Middle School. I’ve been teaching at the Blake School for the last four or five years as an adjunct teacher as well. And then I run the jazz program and teach woodwinds at an after-school private lesson slash small ensemble place called Walker West Music Academy.

Q: How did you hear about SPA, or how did you decide on SPA?

A: I was just looking one day at jobs, and I noticed that this position was open, so I applied. I grew up in St. Paul my whole life, so I’ve known about SPA for a long time, so I just applied and ended up getting the gig.

Q: What was your first impression of SPA?

A: I thought it was really unique for them to be hiring for a full-time position with the focus on jazz band; that’s really what I’ve tried to kind of mold my whole career around [because] teaching jazz is what I love to do. So when I saw that the main focus was going to be jazz band, I was really excited, and then the second focus was winds and woodwinds, which is my other main focus. I just thought it was a unique opportunity, and I was excited.

Q: What do you like to do in your free time?

A: I play a lot of golf. I play a lot of music still in my free time [and] I play gigs around town too. I [also] play video games, and I like to go out to eat a lot.

Q: What is your go-to restaurant or cuisine?

A: My go-to restaurant is probably this place called Little Tijuana or also known as Little T’s. They just have really, really good food [and] good sandwiches. I also really like Thai food. I love pizza also.

Q: Do you have a favorite song or artist?

A: My favorite artist [is] probably John Coltrane. He’s a saxophone player who’s been really important in part of the reason I started playing the saxophone.

Q: What is a fun fact about you?

A: I have a cat named Fern.

Q: What is something you want students to know about you?

A: Something that I want students to know about me is that I’d rather them just ask questions than not knowing if they don’t know something.

My name is Varsha Venkataramanian. I am a world history 10 teacher, a new history upper school history teacher. I’ll be teaching history 10 this year, this semester, and economics as well next semester. Pronouns are she/her.

Q: What did you do, or where did you work before coming to SPA?

A: Before SPA, I was a high school teacher for one year at JCHS, a school in San Francisco, and I was also finishing up my PhD at UC Berkeley in history. I was also teaching Berkeley classes as a TA, and I’ve been teaching those Berkeley classes since 2018.

Q: How did you hear about SPA, or how did you decide on coming to SPA?

A: There’s a sort of recruitment company that puts all these job postings up, and one of the job postings they put up was for SPA. Even though I was in California, I thought I would just apply, because a lot of the California schools I had applied to weren’t really interesting [and] weren’t really speaking to me. When I came to the interview for SPA, I was blown away by the community here. Also, all the teachers are really nice.

Q: What was your first impression of SPA?

A: I think my first impression of SPA was “this place has history,” but it’s also a place that has a community that people have intentionally built for however long they’ve been here. No one is really left out. That was sort of my first impression, not just of the classrooms that I visited, but also of all the teachers that I spoke to; it felt like everybody knew everybody. It felt like SPA was an extension of the tight-knit community that St Paul [has].

Q: What do you like to do in your free time?

A: I have a few main hobbies, [but] they don’t really involve the outdoors. I love reading books, fiction, non-fiction, you have it. I also sort of like learning languages; currently, I’m working on Korean very slowly. But I also love consuming media, specifically TV shows. I huge TV show person, I’m not really a movie person, so I’ve watched hundreds of TV shows. And I also recently got into video editing, so I like making fan cams of those TV shows, [which are] mainly Korean dramas. My favorite Korean drama or TV show is called “Beyond Evil.”

Q: What is your go-to restaurant or cuisine?

A: My go-to cuisine is Mexican, so it is hard to find that in St. Paul and Minneapolis; I’m having trouble. But if we’re not talking about Mexican cuisine, my go-to spot would probably be Sweetgreen or Caribou Coffee. Sweetgreen has solid salad, and Caribou Coffee has a solid coffee.

Q: Who is your favorite artist, or what’s your favorite song?

A: My favorite artist for a long time has been the Mountain Goats. They’re this alternative, windy folk-type band. I’ve seen them live five times, and I think my favorite song from them is called “Love Love Love” [from] an album called The Sunset Tree. A lot of people who are not aggressively millennial do not like this band, but they’re getting sort of a resurgence. And I think another favorite artist of mine would be Hozier. He has a song called, obviously, “Take Me to Church” [and] he has a song called “Cherry Wine” that I absolutely adore.

Q: What is a fun fact about you?

A: I have lived in six states, and I went to elementary school in five different states. So most of my time I spent in California since fifth grade, but I’ve also lived in Madison, Wisconsin; Worcester, Massachusetts; Cincinnati, Ohio; Atlanta, Georgia; as well as Sunnyvale, California. I think the state I’m most nostalgic about … even though I haven’t visited since 2004, is Wisconsin, but the best state to live in for 20 years is California. I miss California so much, but I’m growing towards Minnesota. I enjoy the Twin Cities a lot.

Q: What is something you want students to know about you?

A: I think I want students to know that I am a resource, for all things history but also for anything in general. I really enjoy teaching, mainly because I enjoy sort of the “aha” moments, and I enjoy watching students take charge of their own education. So I’m a resource, and I enjoy being a resource, especially if students are interested in reading history or thinking about history or have any questions.

My name is Mr. van Vliet. I teach ninth-grade English and upper-level electives. Pronouns [are] he/him.

Q: What did you do, or where did you work before coming to SPA?

A: I have actually been here as a sub and a tutor since 2019. Before that, for many years, I did consulting work. I did work in process management and process design, I’ve worked in technology, ran manufacturing and assembly of things, and then I was actually here teaching as a sub and a tutor back in the 2001 and 2002 school years. And before that, I repaired computers [and] I did information design and typography, so I would design magazines [and] brochures. For a number of years, I was helping out [with] designing and maintaining the Common Application, which you have probably heard of. I worked with them during a few years when they were transitioning from it being all paper to being something you could do online. And then before that, I worked here in high school and college, in the summer programs, in the arts programs for those older kids. And I also attended SPA [and] graduated in ’89, so I’m sure I’m forgetting things, but those are some of the things that I’ve done over the years.

Q: How did you hear about SPA, or how did you decide on coming to SPA?

A: I kept moving away and [SPA] would keep hooking me back in. It’s just always been a place that I’ve kept in mind. My wife and I traveled around a lot and lived in lots of different places, and when we moved back to the Twin Cities after a few years, I was thinking to myself, maybe it’s time to see if, if there’s something I can do to come back and work here [because] obviously I’ve known about this place, you know, forever.

Q: What was your first impression of SPA?

A: I came here from a small public school, and my first impression was … how serious and really engaged everybody was. I’d been at this little public school [and there] it felt weird that I liked to read, and I felt like I needed to not let on that I just wanted to read. I wasn’t very good at reading at the school; I felt very behind. So my first impression of SPA was that they were very encouraging, and it [felt] okay to admit that I was a nerd. So that was my first impression as a little kid; I remember kind of coming to school and going, “wow, I get to just read and talk about stuff,” and everybody else was in[to] it, which was really cool.

Q: What do you like to do in your free time?

A: I do like to read and I do like to write. I’m really kind of a boring homebody. I live in a really nice neighborhood that’s really lots of parks and stuff, so I do like to kind of just go for a walk, stuff like that.

Q: What are some of your go-to restaurants or cuisines?

A: [Me and my wife’s] current favorite, because it’s on my way home, [is] Coconut Thai on Grand Avenue; great little place. It’s very dangerous that Carbone’s is on the corner right here. That is … dangerously close; I love Carbone’s. There’s also a nice restaurant near where we live called The Copperfield that has lots of really great stuff; burgers and stuff.

Q: What is your favorite song, or who’s your favorite artist?

A: I’m gonna say probably my real favorite band is XTC. But I really love kind of hard bop jazz, so anything by Wayne Shorter, Miles Davis, of that same era. I used to play guitar, so I like a lot of the guitar jazz players. Julian Lage is a jazz guitarist coming up; he’s in his 30s at this point, and he’s had a good, long career so far. So yeah, pretty much any kind of bebop jazz and Baroque.

Q: What is a fun fact about you?

A: I’m ambidextrous; mostly I write with my right hand, but I can do a lot of stuff with both hands. And I have something called synesthesia, where you can see the colors [with] a word or a sound or a number. There are lots of different kinds … words and numbers and letters and sounds in general conjure up colors for me.

Q: What is something you want students to know about you?

A: I always love chatting with people. So if you see me in the halls or find me in my office, by all means [come chat]. I’m very friendly, [and] I’m always happy to chat about pretty much anything, literally.

I’m Mx. Wreidt, I use they/she pronouns, and I teach biology and chemistry.

Q: What did you do or where did you work before coming to SPA?

A: I worked at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis as a ninth-grade Earth and space science teacher.

Q: How did you hear about SPA, or how did you decide on coming to SPA?

A: I am really close family friends with Mr. Bollinger-Danielson, so when he heard there was a science opening, and I reached out, he and I spoke about the kind of the school [SPA is] and all the great things about it. And it sounded amazing, I mean, you can really tell, once you get here, that people really care, both on the adult side, but also on the student side, which was kind of all I wanted in a school.

Q: What was your first impression of SPA?

A: I think that SPA is very thoughtful. From everything I’ve seen, from administration to teachers to staff to students, everybody thinks a lot about what they do and why they do it. We don’t just come here for the sake of coming here. We think about the reasons why SPA is right for us and how to keep it that way.

Q: What do you like to do in your free time?

A: I am one of those people who has the bug where I think I can do anything that I see, as long as I just try it. So I love to craft. I love sewing and embroidery. I love reading. I’m a Formula One fan. I love to do a lot of things, but I also like to sit and relax and not do anything.

Q: What is your go-to restaurant or cuisine?

A: I love takeout, and my favorite takeout spot is Punch Pizza. I think it stands up the best to the test of the drive time.

Q: What is your favorite song, or who is your favorite artist?

A: I listen to so many different kinds of music, so I’m just gonna have to pick the one that I’ve been listening to the most recently, which is DJO (Joe Keery). And I’ve been listening to “Mortal Projections” on repeat. That’s my most recent [favorite song and artist], but I’m sure it’ll be different next week.

Q: What is a fun fact about you?

A: I’ve known I wanted to be a teacher since fifth grade.

Q: What is something you want students to know about you?

A: We can make anything work as long as you can talk to me. I think a lot of times, students are scared, myself included, to go ask questions or ask for help. I really think that as long as you’re making the effort, there’s nothing we can’t do.