TA News

With many of Thetford Academy’s traditional end-of-year milestone events on hold as a result of Covid-19, we are working hard to ensure that our students don’t miss out and that every student feels valued, supported, and celebrated.

Graduation for the Class of 2020: Though we may not be able mark graduation day in the same way we have in the past, we are developing ideas on how best to make this important event as meaningful and celebratory as possible for the senior class and their families. Our goal is to incorporate many of our TA student-centered traditions into the ceremony. Seniors are already preparing speeches, songs, readings, and other performances–to stream, record, or perform live as permitted. On May 8, the VT Agency of Education will issue guidance to schools about graduation gatherings, which we will use to help us move forward with the next steps in our planning.

Class Day: We are planning a remote Class Day event featuring the senior skit, slide show, and “Last Wills and Testaments.” The Class of 2020 has set up committees and is moving forward with this planning. We will also organize the presentation of scholarships and awards for all grades that happens on Class Day, either live or recorded by faculty and administrators to be shared with students and families.

Other end of year events we are working on:

• Prom: Students and parents want to wait for AOE guidance before making alternative (date, location and style) plans for this event.
• Honors Banquet: This event has been canceled, but we are working on alternative ways to celebrate our honors students for their academic achievement.
• Operation Days Work: The student co-leaders of this year’s ODW event, Emily Trage and Eloise Silver-Van Meter, have set up this event to run as a GoFundMe campaign. This year’s recipient of the student fundraising event is Help Kids India, a nonprofit organization supporting three creches (preschools) for 170 impoverished children in rural areas of South India.

We will continue to update the community as our end-of-year plans come into clearer focus and appreciate all of the work our parent volunteers and student leaders have done to ensure that we stay connected during this difficult time. Thank you to the many parents, students, and TA staff who are working to create these alternative traditions – and to Dean of Students Siobhan Lopez for heading up the planning efforts.

Finally, between now and June 12 we will be celebrating our seniors with a social media campaign #TASeniorCelebration, and other plans are in the works – so stay tuned and help us honor the Class of 2020! (Photo above: Here are our seniors, in a group photo taken by yearbook staff earlier this spring before we went remote.)