Breakwater School is an independent, non-denominational, co-educational school in Portland, Maine. The school currently enrolls up to 180 students from toddler through eighth grade. The sixth through eighth grade program is experiential and integrative, consisting of a series of 6 to 7 week projects completed over the course of the school year. Breakwater was founded as a day care center, named Playtime Haven, by Frank and El Costa in 1956 after their son recovered from a serious illness. As it grew, it moved to a series of different locations in South Portland and Cape Elizabeth, until 1982 when it purchased its current location in Portland. Since then, the school has also been given a 21-acre nature preserve in nearby Cumberland which it uses regularly for field trips as part of the school's Science curriculum. The Executive Director is David Sullivan, previously a Teaching Principal at the Brooklin School in Brooklin, Maine, and the Academic Director is Maggie Lyon.