TA News

TA Sophomore Cecilia Luce was recently published in VTDigger as part of its student journalism platform, the “Underground Workshop.” Ceci’s article, “A sacred space: Founders’ Day at Thetford Academy,” looked at the roots of the nearly 80 year-old TA tradition. Founders’ Day, she writes, begins each year with “a story about the school’s perseverance [through]…adversity.”

The first Founders’ Day, instituted by then headmaster Carl Anderson, was celebration of the school’s resilience after the Great Fire of 1942 burned the original classroom building to the ground. This year’s event, the first near-normal Founders’ Day since the pandemic’s onset 2020, echoed that history. Ceci quotes English teacher Joe Deffner, who called the ceremony a “sacred space,” and noted the relevance of the Founders’ Day story to modern Thetford Academy.

VTDigger’s Underground Workshop aims to “give more young Vermonters access to the transformative experiences of reporting and publication, bring more students’ voices into the public sphere, facilitate collaboration among student reporters from across Vermont, and help students produce compelling journalism for a statewide audience.” Students in both high school and college are encouraged to participate, and the Workshop collaborates with schools to help students earn credit for their work. At TA, the Challenge Course creates a pathway for students like Ceci to develop an independent study as part of their high school experience.