letter to Faculty & Staff – Launching the New Year
August 12, 2021
Dear Colleagues,
In a week’s time we will come together to launch a new school year. Our ranks here on campus will swell from a small team of about 10 to a powerhouse of almost 70 educators and school staff. Imagine the collective energy, good ideas, and muscle power of such a team! Not just any group, but our awesome TA team.
Whether it’s our first or fifth or thirtieth year at Thetford Academy, we each have so much to offer to the barnraising-level of effort it takes getting a new school year off the ground and making it the best possible for students. This fall we have the added opportunity and challenge of transitioning from the intense Covid experience of the last 18 months and leading our students and ourselves into a new (not quite yet) post-Covid world. We have been through a lot – and also learned so much – and now the future is ours to create.
Included in this mailing is the agenda for the back-to-school inservice days on August 20 and 23. As with all of our professional development time, these days are designed to create opportunities for connection, planning, learning, and collaboration – with a balance of large group time, team time, and individual time. The two other enclosures are a copy of the school calendar to have at home and a small poster featuring the TA mission and values.
Our school mission and values were an important north star for us as we navigated through the pandemic. I am eager to keep them central to our work as we move forward this year; to revisit and recommit to them as a community. As you prepare for the start of the fall semester, and balance that inevitable mix of feelings of hope, excitement, pressure, and jitters, I invite you to reflect on each of TA’s five values. Which one or two carried you through the past year or so? Which ones do you want to elevate as priorities in your work this year? How can we draw on these values to support, nurture, celebrate, and challenge all of our students and their learning?
Here’s to a mission-inspired year!
Sincerely,
Carrie Brennan, Head of School