The Vermont Academy Way (Fall 2020)

The Vermont Academy Way

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Campus We Ascend Together: The Campaign for Vermont Academy’s Future

Design Thinking: Bringing an Entrepreneurial Mindset to the Classroom The Center for Learning: The Student-Centered Hub on Campus VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1 ~ FALL 2020

Dear Vermont Academy Family, We have the opportunity right now to position Vermont Academy as a school of the future – to be leaders in educating all students.

This is a crucial moment.

The global pandemic presents so many challenges to the health of our campus community – and the financial health of the School, as we support a growing number of students whose families cannot pay full tuition as they face job losses and other economic uncertainties.

Fortunately, the Vermont Academy Way – our educational model rooted in our school history – has always led us to find opportunity in the midst of challenge.

You – our alumni, families, and supporters – are a catalyst. You can and do have an impact. And we need your help to fortify, restore, and rejuvenate the foundation of our School.

As you know, our student-centered programs provide our graduates with an education for life, one based on a set of experiences, core values, well-tested principles, and a central mission. Vermont Academy has always stood out as a school that helps students with unrealized potential launch onto a lifelong path of productivity and purpose. More than ever, the Vermont Academy Way is the way of the future.

As you’ll read in the following pages, we’re working hard to keep our campus healthy during a global pandemic, develop faculty leaders, and build on the foundation for exceptional student experience. We need you to join us now in order to secure the future of Vermont Academy in a post-COVID world.

If everyone is all in on our Campaign for Vermont Academy’s Future, we will secure our wonderful, transformational school for generations to come. You can read more about this campaign on page 3.

Warm regards from the hilltop,

Dr. Jennifer L. Zaccara, Head of School

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The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Campus Last spring Vermont Academy’s students happily departed for what should have been a well-earned break. They left behind books, clothes, and, in some cases, their computers, thinking they would be returning in just over two weeks to a warmer and sunnier campus. Instead, the global COVID-19 pandemic spread quickly, leading the Governor of Vermont to shut down all schools for the remainder of the school year.

Students attended classes last spring on their computer screens. The hard work and dedication of faculty and staff led to the creation of an online curriculum that gained high praise from parents and students alike. Sessions spanned time zones in order to accommodate our international and West Coast students. Maintaining a sense of student life was an important focus, and online club activities became common. Community meetings, led by Vermont Academy Student Association (VASA), brought everyone together once a week for announcements, presentations, and a big “GO VA!” Administrators knew they could reopen the school in a safe and healthy way and they worked tirelessly throughout the summer planning for any situation. Countless investments were made to the campus. The school partnered with Centogene to provide campus-wide COVID-19 testing and a parent donated a rapid-response test machine which will allow us to receive test results for symptomatic individuals within minutes. Technology was upgraded to improve the virtual classrooms. We contracted with Sage Dining Services to ensure students receive healthy and safe meals in a grab-and-go world. Facilities installed countless plexiglass barriers in our bathrooms throughout campus. An event streaming service broadcasts our athletic competitions on the web -- the first of these being soccer wins against Holderness. And our lawns along Long Walk are now graced by stately white tents that are being used for outside classrooms.

Unfortunately, the economic fallout created by the pandemic has led to a significant increase in requests for financial aid. The combination of unexpected investments in the campus and parents needing more tuition assistance has impacted the short-term financial well-being of the School.

We have not experienced a single case of COVID-19. The combination of mask use, social distancing, and increased hand hygiene has led to a significant drop in visits to the health services compared to past years. Our student body and campus community has never been healthier.

THE VERMONT ACADEMY WAY

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We Ascend Together

THE CAMPAIGN FOR VERMONT ACADEMY’S FUTURE

You are a catalyst.

Vermont Academy is a destination for explorers, thinkers, doers — students who want to make something happen. The same can be said of our alumni, families, and supporters. You seek impact, to light a spark or solve a problem.

You – our alumni, families, and supporters – believe that Vermont Academy matters, that we deliver something that cannot be duplicated.

With your help, the team and vision are set to go.

The steeper the climb, the sharper our focus.

Today’s students are growing up during a time of significant unrest and uncertainty, facing challenges that some of us would find insurmountable. At the same time, we recognize how Vermont Academy students answer the call to overcome, to climb, to pursue their dreams with an irrepressible sense of determination.

A Vermont Academy education has never been more relevant than it is today.

The demand for innovative thinkers has never been greater. Solving the big problems our world faces has never been more urgent.

Our students know they can spark real change – by blazing a trail of individualized learning, Wildcats discover personal purpose, learn through doing and create visible impact.

As we ascend toward our future together, we look to become the pre-eminent New England small college-preparatory school that successfully traversed the difficult obstacles of today and rose above, better prepared for tomorrow.

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Delivering on the future.

We stand at a pivotal moment in educational history. We are experiencing a paradigm shift in thinking about how students should work and learn – coupled with a global pandemic. The Vermont Academy Way of teaching and learning – with its emphasis on practical experience and self-direction – is more suited to this educational moment than ever before.

The economic crisis from the global pandemic has caused significant stress on our students, their families, and, as a result, the School. Your financial support will allow us to invest deeply in our foundation, which will best position us to secure Vermont Academy’s future.

Our determination to secure our vision is unwavering. Preparations were underway for a $25 million campaign in support of the School’s strategic plan to create a set of actionable beliefs about learning that would distinguish Vermont Academy as a leader in the modern marketplace.

To fortify this mission while leading our students on their educational journey in the safest and most accessible space, we need your support – and flexibility – with gifts today. Vermont Academy is not your typical school, and this is not your typical fundraising effort. We need our supporters to accelerate giving, investing directly – immediately – in the student experience to deliver on our mission at this critical time.

Your unbounded support will ensure our students move forward in an unmatched learning environment. We will begin building our future together with a two-year, $8 million campaign focused on: • Shaping the Future with Scholarships • Reaching New Heights with Program Leadership and Development • Revitalizing Our Campus with Pride Our fundraising for scholarships, program leadership and development, and capital improvements is an all-in effort that will result in immediate impact, on behalf of today’s students and the future of our School.

Vermont Academy is a place of remarkable individuals who together can meet any challenge. This moment calls us to do exactly that, so We Ascend Together.

The Campaign for Vermont Academy’s Future invites your partnership and support. Find out more at http://www.vermontacademy.org/ascend.

THE VERMONT ACADEMY WAY

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Design Thinking: Bringing an Entrepreneurial Mindset to the Classroom All of Vermont Academy’s small classrooms are filled with vastly different students. Athletes sit side-by-side with artists, academics, and students longing to be outdoors, some facing challenges that require learning support.

Our teachers need to understand how to help each and every student access high-level information in a way that exceeds standards. This might require changes in how the content is taught, how the classroom is arranged, and even where lessons take place. This is why Vermont Academy’s professional development efforts are now focused on a two-year design thinking process.

Tara Curry-Jahn has been brought in to lead this professional development effort. A leadership developer with the organization Leadership + Design, she partners with schools, districts, and organizations to help staff think creatively and systematically to become more user-centered and strategic. Mr. Dan Burmester, head of performing arts and strategic plan program coordinator, has been charged with coordinating designthinking training.

Design thinking, also known as human-centered design, is a process that uses an entrepreneurial model to solve problems and create solutions for end-users — in Vermont Academy’s case, students and families. The design thinking process was created at The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, which Curry-Jahn attended. Through the design-thinking lens, any challenge is an opportunity. “Sometimes it’s about things that are working really well,” explains Curry-Jahn. “For example, with social and emotional learning, there are places where students already feel safe communicating with teachers and staff. What is it about those places that can be extended elsewhere?”

Dr. Zaccara believes this approach will have a major impact on how Vermont Academy educates students. “By putting the individual student at the center of the process, and by helping our teachers develop an entrepreneurial mindset, our teachers and classrooms will become even more flexible, and as a result each and every student will be more engaged in the learning and creative process.”

By growing our already strong teaching practices, we are confident our students will use their creativity and empathy to make the world around them a better, more human-centered place.

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The Center for Learning: The Student-Centered Hub on Campus Walk into Proctor Hall on any given day and you will find students meeting with staff in one-on-one or small group sessions; working on study skills such as note taking, time management and organization; receiving support with specific academic assignments; discussing accommodations for tests Ms. Amy Lanterman and Mr. Peter Ahlfeld like the SATs; receiving coaching designed for ADHD; discussing supports needed in a class; receiving peer tutoring at the Writing Center; or planning for transition to life after Vermont Academy in college counseling. Proctor Hall is in many ways the heart of the Vermont Academy campus, and it will only grow in importance as we expand our Learning Skills program into the Center for Learning.

Students requiring intensive individualized support will continue to receive services in the Center for Learning. As Peter Ahlfeld, the director of the Center for Learning explains, “Our Learning Skills Program, or LSK, has long been known for helping students and partnering with parents. Whether we’re building motivation and confidence, coaching to improve executive function, helping students manage long-term projects, or tutoring for specific subjects, this critical, individualized work will continue and even expand.”

Building on the reputation of the LSK, the Center for Learning now acts as a structured support for each and every student. Through self-assessment tools like the StrengthsFinder® test and self-direction structures like the MAPS® program (My Action Plan for Success), all Vermont Academy students will now connect to the Center for Learning to help them learn about themselves and achieve their potential.

Dr. Zaccara explains the need for this expanded center the best: “In this new century, we have a responsibility to educate our students in innovative ways, preparing them to be the flexible thinkers and creative problem solvers of the future.”

The Center for Learning works with students right from the admissions process through a positive transition to college. Peter Ahlfeld and Amy Lanterman have over 60 years of experience in education between them: Lanterman has worked with Vermont Academy students for 32 years, and Ahlfeld is a teacher and administrator who brings personal experience with a learning disability along with his extensive resume working in schools for more than 30 years.

As the program grows, the Center for Learning will stay true to its place as the heart of the Vermont Academy community and to its vision of valuing the individual learner.

THE VERMONT ACADEMY WAY

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Stay in Touch!

We’re moving more and more to communicating through email and on the web, so be sure to keep connected with your Vermont Academy family by ensuring we have a correct email address.

Has your email changed, or are you not receiving emails from Vermont Academy?

Send a quick note to advancement@vermontacademy.org to correct your email address and/or to receive our e-newsletters and other important communication!

P.O. Box 500 Saxtons River VT 05154

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