News & Events

Annually, all Rock Point School students participate in a Civil Rights Movement Unit in history class. We do this because we offer a Civil Rights Trip each year, and we believe that experiential learning works best when participants have a solid foundation of knowledge. Although only a portion of our students go on the trip, it’s worthwhile to make these learning experiences accessible to all.

Before December break, we had a very special visitor at Rock Point! Spot the Robot came to show us some of what is possible in the field of robotics. Rob Collier, parent of a Rock Point Student and a manager at Boston Dynamics, volunteered to bring Spot to school to introduce students to robotics. We were thrilled to learn more about this expanding discipline!

Before the December Vacation, we held a Model U.N. at Rock Point School! In all cores, students spent one or two social studies classes a week since Thanksgiving break preparing for this conference by researching their country and its views over time to form an opinion and speak knowledgeably about a given topic. It was a big ask in a short time, and students truly rose to the occasion.

We were thrilled to welcome students onto campus for Summer Session on July 9th. With a great mix of new and returning students, it is wonderful to see the group start to make connections with one another as they dive into their activities and learning.

Senior Charlie D. with the cast of professional actors who performed his play at the Vermont Young Playwrights Festival on May 17, 2023

This spring, Rock Point School staff and students joined forces with other community leaders and planned a pilgrimage to the heart of our country's civil rights movement. On May 12th, our group of travelers set off at 3:30 am to catch their flight to Atlanta and then drive to Selma, Alabama. In Selma, students and staff met with activists who participated in the Selma to Montgomery March of 1965 and visited the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge, where civil rights activists marched for voting rights and were attacked on “Bloody Sunday.” This is just one of the many historical landmarks of the Civil Rights Movement students will visit in Selma, Montgomery, and Atlanta. They will also visit several churches that were significant in the battle for civil rights as well as museums and memorials dedicated to preserving our history.

What would Eminem, Louis Bresson (famed French photographer), Jean-Michel Basquiat, Prince Harry, Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael), Bob Dylan, and Tommie Smith have to say about gun control in the United States?

This year’s senior English class recently embarked on a project to investigate book banning – why and how are books banned, and what are the cultural implications of banning books? As a group, they read several articles about banned books, including Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools, and discussed their opinions on what it means to have materials censored in a school or community. They discussed both the historical context of books that have been banned in the past, as well as current examples of books that are banned or censored.

Nine RPS students elected to take part in the Vermont Young Playwrights' workshop on Tuesday, November 16. Among them were students with lots of experience writing plays, students who have been involved in theatre but never tried their hand at writing their own play, and students who are trying out drama for the first time. With the guidance of professional playwright Jordan Gullikson, they spent the day playing improv games, learning the basic tenets of writing plays, and then beginning their own plays.

Sam Holland works to make the imagined real. As a former engineering student of our math tutor, Michael Coleman, Sam took his curiosity about how things were made and became a mechanical engineer. He has worked at places like MakerBot and Vimeo, and now, he owns his own business called informal.cc, where he helps companies of all sizes create hardware. We are thrilled that he decided to visit Rock Point School and work on 3-D design and printing projects with our students.