The International School of Minnesota broke ground last Wednesday on a new 12,000-square-foot addition at the school’s 55-acre Eden Prairie campus.
The campus, at the southeast corner of Highway 494 and 62 on Bryant Lake, is part of the SABIS School Network, "established in 1886 with 50 schools in 15 countries and over 40,000 students."
"Consistently increasing enrollment and corporate growth has spawned this addition," said Head of Admissions and Marketing Christine Brinkman. ISM has been in Eden Prairie for more than 20 years.
Enrollment is expected to go from about 550 this year to 630 next year "and just keep going," Brinkman said. "We’ve got 55 acres. We’ve got lots of room to build." A long-term goal is to have 1,500 students from age 3 to grade 12.
The addition includes a new High School wing with more classrooms, a commons area and restrooms. On the corporate side, the U.S. SABIS Corporate Offices will add offices, meeting and storage space and a new main entrance, according to a news release.
The International School, 6385 Beach Road, is a private, nondenominational college preparatory school for children from preschool through grade 12.
There are still misconceptions about what the International School is, said representatives of the school in a recent interview.
It's not a school for children of diplomats. About a third of the school's students come from Eden Prairie, Brinkman pointed out. There are students from 40 different nationalities at the school, about 3 percent on a student visa.
And it doesn't just teach world languages, although world language is an important part of the curriculum.
Parents select either French or Spanish, and students study that language throughout their school years. If the student becomes proficient, they can add another language. Chinese is also offered at ISM.
The SABIS schools offer "a rigorous, internationally oriented, college-preparatory curriculum, emphasising the core subjects of English, math, science and world languages." The school is "not academically selective."
George Saad, vice president of academics at the school, is a descendant of one of the founders of the school in a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon.
"It was a school for girls," Brinkman said, "not a very popular thing in Beirut in 1885."
"They saw that there were absolutely no opportunities for girls to receive an education at the time," Saad said. "They saw something very wrong with that picture." The next year the school became co-educational.
Saad said that first school started with 28 students in its first year -- and 100 years later the first International School in the United States, in Minnesota, started with 28 students in 1985.
"To this day, in many ways, that still defines the SABIS character," Saad said, to pursue "something worthwhile, even if it's against practices or fads."
Director Sue Berg said that the International School of Minnesota is one of the smallest in the SABIS network. She said the school came to Minnesota because of its quality of life, number of multinational corporations and the stature of the public schools.
Saad said that accountability is important at the International School, and students are tested weekly, with teachers held accountable for student performance.
"The organization has been doing that for decades," he said.
"First and foremost we are a life prep school," he said, and the testing prepares students to compete in a global economy, to handle pressure.
"You will fail, but you will get up again," Saad said. "This becomes a value, a lesson, an experience."
According to a school brochure, the school has a 100 percent college acceptance rate; and an average of nearly 50 percent of ISM students taking AP exams earn AP Scholar Awards.
"We're very honest with our kids. If they're failing, we say, 'You guys are failing.'"
And, he says, "We do not let kids fail in peace."
Costs to attend range from about $8,000 per year for preschool to $14,550 for high school.
For more information, visit www.ism-sabis.net [1] or all 952-918-1840.

Upcoming events
High School One-Act Play is at 7 p.m. May 9
The International School's Sailing Team has a Regatta set for May 17 at Lake Minnetonka. That's also the date of the school's prom.
Middle School and High School Show Choir Performance, 7 p.m. May 30