Head of School Weekly Email: Taking Time to Celebrate
March 12, 2021
Dear TA Families & Students,
This one-year pandemic anniversary is intense, isn’t it? To go back a year and realize just how little we knew what was coming and how long it would last can make one’s head spin.
Despite 12 months of navigating life and school through a pandemic, we have so much good going on. Here’s a partial round up:
- The Thetford Selectboard chose the entire teaching and school staff of our community as one of their recipients of the Annual Civic Pride award. This award, along with the townspeople’s passing of the 2021-22 school budget on March 2, is cause for celebration. (For more details on the school portion of town meeting in Thetford, visit https://www.thetfordeschool.org/community/tes-school-board and follow the ‘town meeting 2021’ link.)
- The middle school ‘Getting to Y’ group held their second community forum on Tuesday evening. It was awesome to engage with this group of 7th and 8th graders as they presented and facilitated discussion around key data in the youth risk behavior survey that is conducted biannually across the country. Kudos to all of the students participating this year in the middle school and high school Getting to Y groups. We will share more of their findings and action planning in weeks to come.
- This week the temps started to rise, the snow started to soften, and the sap started to run. TOP Coordinator Scott Ellis fired up the TA sugar shack earlier this month. He and students have been busy with the whole sugaring process – collecting, boiling, and making syrup. The first batch was bottled yesterday. Sap is flowing and spring is around the corner – two causes for celebration.
- We got a bit of panther press this week. The Valley News gave a shout-out to our girls basketball team and WCAX was interested in our use of tents on campus.
- And last, but certainly not least, teachers and school staff in Vermont are getting vaccinated! Roll out started across the state on Monday, and TA employees are quickly lining up their appointments. Much relief and celebration on this front, for sure.
These are just a few of the many things worth celebrating that are on my list. What’s on your list?
Next week we will celebrate all of our students and our spirit of school community with Student Appreciation Week, March 15-18. We will have a variety of special activities and raffles. Tuesday is TA blue and white day and Thursday is dress like a teacher day.
Reminder: There is no school on Friday 3/19. This is the spring teacher inservice day at Thetford Academy and Thetford Elementary School.
Have a great weekend,
Carrie Brennan, Head of School