News & Events

We are so proud of senior, Julia, for her acceptance to Cornell College! Julia's mother attended Cornell College, so Julia grew up hearing stories about the small liberal arts school in Iowa. Julia was drawn to Cornell because of it's "One Course at a Time" curriculum, which allows for students to immerse themselves in a single course for 3 1/2 week blocks. The school was also featured in Loren Pope's book Colleges that Change Lives because of it's challenging curriculum, excellent faculty, and focus on experiential learning. After visiting Cornell College this summer, Julia found the location appealing, with campus just a short bike ride from downtown Mount Vernon, dubbed one of "America's Coolest Small Towns." Most impressively, Julia was awarded two substantial scholarships from Cornell, a Presidential Scholarship and a Legacy Award! Julia is still waiting to hear from other colleges, but is thrilled to be accepted to one of her top choice schools! Congratulations, Julia!!

Before break, we held our annual holiday celebration. In our student lead service, students and presented on important holidays and traditions in their lives: Hanukkah, Christmas, and Solstice. The highlight of the celebration is our Secret Santa exchange! Students and staff clandestinely created some awesome hand-made presents, including mittens, hats, paintings, baked goods, and some silly gifts too. As usual, the celebration was a fabulous way to end 2014 at school.

We are still in the planning stages for our upcoming reunion, but we hope alumni and families will mark their calendars and can join us for a fun weekend!

On Sunday, students and staff headed to Boston for a whirlwind, one-day, tour! While they were there, they went to the Boston Aquarium, checking out exhibits such as the Giant Ocean tank and the Marine Mammal Center. Highlights included seeing all varieties of penguins, the shark and ray touch tank, and the luminous jellyfish! After exploring the aquarium, they attended an iMax movie "Great White Shark." The group then headed to Faneuil Hall to see the historic area of Boston, do some shopping, and eat some dinner.

Our science teacher, Mari, took five students to the Vermont Youth Climate Summit today at UVM. The summit is, "A gathering of Vermont students to inspire action, share ideas, craft plans, & ultimately reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our schools and communities" lead by UVM undergraduates studying ecologcial economics. Over 150 high school students from 26 high schools all over the state are in attendance. Senator Bernie Sanders gave a keynote speech this morning and is partnering with the University to sponsor the event. The hope is that students will return to their high schools with ideas that can be implemented in each community. We are so excited to be part of this awesome event!

Hillary Kramer, our Director of Admissions, is off at the annual Independent Educational Consultant Association Conference in Orlando, Florida this week! The goal of the conference is for schools and programs to connect with Educational Consultants and each other. There are seminars, workshops, and speeches aimed to help both consultants and representatives from schools and programs improve. Hillary is having a great time connecting with consultants she's known for years, meeting new consultants, and learning about other school programs! She especially enjoyed the keynote speaker at this year's conference, 17 year old Justin Bachman, who shared his struggles and his resilience as someone with Tourette's. Justin challenges everyone to "Be an upstander, not a bystander." His speech was relevant to so many of our students and was very inspiring! Here's a video of Justin introducing his methods and ideas: [youtube id="16IRRl1UJ6M" width="600" height="350"]

The 2014 Ooky Spooky race was a smashing success! Despite cool, rainy weather, 88 brave runners came to participate, along with family members, students, volunteers, and kids! This year, there was also a short kids' race around the lower field, with some very enthusiastic participants. Thanks to all our supporters, the race raised $1020.00 for the Committee on Temporary Housing (COTS) to help homeless Vermonters. This is 40% more than we raised last year! Thanks to all the goblins, ghosts, witches, gnomes, and princesses who came out to run and to raise money for this worthy cause! See the document below for the official race results.

For years, our art teacher, Jeannie Waltz, has been doing Andy Goldsworthy inspired projects with our students. Goldsworthy, a British photographer, sculptor, and environmentalist, produces site-specific sculpture and land art in natural and urban settings. Previous year's projects have involved building a giant bird's nest in the front lawn and creating wreaths from vines and hanging them in the sumac trees, just to name a couple. This year, students in the Core 1 class were ispired to use our fresh asphalt on the basketball court as a background to showcase the bright fall foliage. The combination of an urban feature (asphalt) and the natural beauty of the maple leaves created a striking end result. The students were so inspired by their first effort, they decided to make a second project, involving the entire community and using sumac leaves. Check out the time-lapse video below, created by a member of the class!

One of the great things about being in Burlington is that there are tons of cultural and artistic events we can go to! We have had a relationship with the Flynn Center for Performing Arts for years and this year we are attending the Lane Series at UVM. From the Lane Series Website: