News & Events

Take some students and staff who love to bake, some students and staff who love to eat, a whole bunch of people who love a challenge, and... Rock Point School's Banana-palooza is born! The first Banana-palooza was the brain child of Caleb, a junior, who loves to bake. His vision was a baking contest/party with a banana theme.

For the sixth year in a row, we will be hosting a Maple Brunch and 5k Race! Come taste the maple syrup we make here at Rock Point and drizzle it on everything from pancakes to bacon to yogurt! If you'd like to work up your appetite before brunch, we will have a fun 5k race through our beautiful lakeside property. As usual, tours of our sugaring operation and sugar house will be available throughout the morning. See the schedule of events below. We hope you can join us!

We are excited to welcome families back to campus in a few weeks! Winter Parent Conferences are a great chance to touch base with parents and have students show off the awesome work they've been doing over the past few months. Highlights of the weekend will be:

It's hard to imagine, but after 42 years, this June Lonnie will be retiring as our office administrator. If you have called the school, walked through our doors, delivered the mail, or fixed the pipes, Lonnie has been the one to greet you and make you feel welcome. In her time at Rock Point, she took on everything from book-keeping to record keeping to decorating the dinning room for special events. She is the engine that has kept the school running.

John Rouleau, Headmaster emeritus, came to read to students at the holiday time, as he has done for decades. Although John retired in 2011, he still lives in Burlington with his wife Alice, which means he is able to participate in some Rock Point traditions! This year he read Dylan Thomas' "A Child's Christmas in Wales" and "A gifty time of year" by Kathryn Blume. The students were engrossed from beginning to end and shared their appreciation generously with John.

If you watch the news at all, it seems like our country is more divided than ever. As a school, we decided to combat the divisions in our culture by joining the UNITY project. This is a public art project designed to raise awareness about the labels we put on ourselves and others and explore how those labels both support and limit communities. This giant yarn structure demonstrates visually how we are all connected, while also acknowledging what makes each of us unique.

The Ooky Spooky race is just around the corner! Saturday, October 22nd come join us at 9 am (registration begins at 8am) for a spooktacular run! Each year, we host this fun, costumed, 5k race to benefit COTS (Committee on Temporary Shelter).

This week we held our 2nd Annual Bee Week! The week consisted of cross-curricular bee-focused activities. In science, students studied the anatomy of bees, the chemistry of honey, and the physics of bee flight. In English, students read articles from American Bee Journal and Bee Culture, learning about pollinators and the challenges of contemporary bee keeping. Students also operated the smoker, inserted a "bee escape" to our hives, and extracted honey. In Math, students focused on hexagons, and various problem solving activities using hive shapes. Finally, in art class, students designed and created a bee-themed cake. Alternating yellow cake and chocolate cake layers, topped with flowers and marzipan bees, the cake was a delicious piece of art! Students also made honey ice cream and some beeswax crafts.

Each year, students go camping on their first weekend at Rock Point. The students who live on the 3rd floor traveled to Grand Isle State Park on Lake Champlain, where they enjoyed a gorgeous sunset Friday night. Saturday, they picked apples, visited a dairy farm, and took in a Farmers' Market. The students who live on the 2nd floor, traveled to Button Bay State Park Friday and then took the annual trek to the Tunbridge World's Fair where they enjoyed all the fried dough, rides, and games they could take!

Guest post by Cultivations instructor, Alex Gemme: As part of our Cultivations class, we are exploring the history of Rock Point and learning about how the land has been used through the years. This week, we met the research specialist, Prudence, in the special collections section of the UVM Bailey Howe Library. We felt like we were entering the 'restricted' section of the library at Hogwarts, but more heavily guarded.