THETFORD ACADEMY'S
PARENT, FAMILY & COMMUNITY CALENDAR
September 29 – October 6, 2008
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Scroll down to see our TEACHING & LEARNING section, following the Events & TA News. There’s also a section with Community News at the very end of this message.
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EVENTS THIS WEEK:
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29:
MENU: Chicken nuggets, quad color garlic rotini, veggie medley
• Junior Varsity Girls Soccer: Hazen @ TA 4:30. This is a replacement game.
• Junior Varsity Boys Soccer: Rivendell @ TA 4:30.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30:
MENU:Macaroni and cheese w/ whole-wheat spirals, with or without ham; peas and carrots
• ASSEMBLY: MAGAZINEDRIVE - The Student Council’s annual sale of magazine subscriptions is the Council’s main fundraising event each year. All grades participate in the drive and all proceeds go to student activities such as trips, clubs, teams, and special projects to benefit student life. Students will bring packets home today to begin the drive, which will continue through the month of October.
• College Representative:Oberlin College (OH) 10:45
• Middle School/High School Cross Country: TA @ Woodstock MS 4/HSB 4:30/HSG 5:00. Bus at 2:15. This race wil be held at the Woodstock Health & Fitness Center on Rte. 106 in Woodstock. The following directions, and a request about parking come from the Woodstock Athletic Director.
Teams and parents are asked to drive past the WH&FC and park in the parking lot on the left (dirt parking lot). There are stairs that go down to the starting location. A porta-potty is provided for your use as a bathroom.
Directions: As you come into the village of Woodstock, take Rte. 106 South that goes along side The Woodstock Inn. The WH&FC is about 2 miles on your left.
• Middle School Soccer: Lyme @ TA 4:30.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 1:
MENU: American chop suey
• NECAP TESTING FOR JUNIORS BEGINS: Juniors begin testing during C block with the first of two Writing tests. Hartford afternoon tech students will attend their programs and take this test on Wed. Oct. 8.
• ACADEMIC SUPPORT 2:05-3:00with busing available at TES at 3:00
• Junior Varsity Boys Soccer: Lisbon, NH @ TA 4:00.
• Varsity Girls Soccer: Hinsdale, NH @ TA 4:30.
• PROJECT GRADUATION: The Project Graduation Parents' Meeting will be from 7:00-9:00 pm in the TA Library. Please help us plan; new ideas and willing bodies are needed and welcome! This group plans to meet each Wednesday evening at 7:00 in this location from now on.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2:
MENU: Bagel melts and tomato soup
• SCHOOL PICTURES: School pictures will be taken again this year by Life-Touch Studios. Order packets will be sent home soon. Students must be prepared with packet selections and payment on October 2nd. All students will have photos taken for school records, but are not required to purchase pictures.
• NECAP TESTING FOR JUNIORS CONTINUES: Juniors will test during A + B blocks with the second of two Writing tests and the first Reading test.
• College representative: SUNY – Potsdam (NY) 10:00
• Middle School Girls and Boys Soccer: Blue Mtn. @ TA 4:30.
• PARENTS' BACK TO SCHOOL CURRICULUM NIGHT: Parents are invited to an evening to meet teachers and learn about courses, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. You'll meet with the advisor first and with all first-semester teachers by following your child’s schedule through the evening. It's a great, high-energy night: we hope you'll join us.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3: HALF DAY - Students will be released at 11:30. All classes will run on a shortened schedule. A breakfast menu will be served from 7:20 through the mid-morning break; there will be no lunch service.
• Varsity Girls and Boys Soccer: TA @ Rivendell 4:30. Bus at 3:30 (one way).
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4:
• WOODS TRAIL RUN: Thetford Academy will host 2000 runners from throughout New England for the eighteenth annual invitational cross country meet. Races start at 10:00. If you would like to volunteer to help with this event please contact David McGinn at extension 214.
•PIE SALE: delicious homemade pies
9:00 am- noon
Thetford Hill Green
Funds to benefit the 7th grade Washington, DC trip
MONDAY, OCTOBER 6:
MENU: Make your own tortilla
• NECAP TESTING FOR GRADES 7 AND 8 BEGINS: Middle school students begin testing during B block with the first of two Reading tests. The NECAP testing will continue for middle school daily during B block 10/6-9, 13-14, and for the 8th grade 10/15-16. Students who may be absent during the testing will be provided opportunities to make-up testing missed.
• Junior Varsity Girls Soccer: TA @ Oxbow 4:00. Bus at 3:00.
• Junior Varsity Boys Soccer: TA @ Rivendell 4:30. Bus at 3:00 w/ JVG.
• Middle School Girls and Boys Soccer: Haverhill @ TA 4:00.
• VSAC "PAYING FOR COLLEGE" NIGHT:Headed for college or other training? Wondering how you're going to pay for it? Worried you might not be able to? You and your parents are invited to a FREE workshop offered by the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation in collaboration with TA's Guidance Office in the Shark Tank Theater at 6:30.
Topics include: types of financial aid, how to apply, family contribution, how aid is packaged, and alternative sources of aid. The workshop will last about one-and-a-half hours with time for questions. No advance registration is necessary. For more information, contact the Guidance Office or call VSAC at 800-882-4166. All New Hampshire families are encouraged to attend.
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MENU AT A GLANCE for easy reference:
Monday, September 29:Chicken nuggets, quad color garlic rotini, veggie medley
Tuesday, September 30: Macaroni and cheese w/ whole wheat spirals, with or without ham; peas and carrots
Wednesday, October 1: American chop suey
Thursday, October 2:Bagel melts and tomato soup
Friday, October 3:Half day – breakfast will be available at break
Monday, October 6:Make your own tortilla
Our salad bar currently features fresh produce from Crossroad Farm and Cedar Circle Farm! We thank them for continued support of our Farm to School Project.
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UPCOMING SCHOOL EVENTS:
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9: THETFORD ACADEMY BOARD OF TRUSTEES MEETING
The trustees will hold their monthly meeting at 7:00 in the TA Library. All meetings of the Board are open to the public.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10: 8TH GRADE DANCE
The 8th grade will sponsor the second dance of the year. This dance will be for middle school students (7 + 8) only. Like all dances, it will run from 7:30-9:30.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15: PSAT TESTING
Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Tests (PSATs) will be given starting at 7:35 a.m. This test is practice for the SAT, which is required for admission by virtually all four-year colleges and by many two-year schools. Most college-bound juniors should register to take the PSAT. This is also the qualifying test for the National Merit Scholarship program.
Sophomores may also register to take the test. Students in grade 10 who have begun their study of geometry will find the test experience most useful.
To register, students should bring a check for $13.00, payable to Thetford Academy, to the Guidance Office.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16: WOMEN CAN DO!
This 10th annual conference for high school girls will be held at Vermont Technical College. The cost is only $15.00.
The conference is a full day of hands-on workshops in trades, technology, and other non-traditional careers to women. A list of programs being offered is available in the Guidance Office.
Interested students should see their guidance counselor. TA will provide transportation and scholarship money is available.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22: FIRST QUARTER ENDS
We end the first grading period of the year. Report cards will be sent home with students on Friday, October 31.
THURSDAY & FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23-24: NO SCHOOL — TEACHER CONVENTION DAYS
Thetford Academy will not hold school on Thursday and Friday, October 23 and 24, as these are the statewide dates for Teachers' Conventions. The school office will be closed on these days.
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ACADEMY NEWS & NOTES:
Please send inquiries or items for the “Academy News & Notes” section to Head of School Martha Rich . If you’d like your news included in that week’s Monday edition, please submit no later than the preceding Friday at 2:00 p.m.
SAFETY COMMITTEE (from School Nurse Sue Farrell)
We have a new Safety Committee at school. Our mission is to keep our school environment safe and educate students and staff about safety issues. Our monthly topics will be publicized through posters, announcements, and hands-on activities. We welcome input from parents and families about concerns that your student has encountered and that you would like addressed. Look for our monthly topics in the PFC and discuss them with your child!
THETFORD ACADEMY SNOWBOARD CLUB (from Linda Reeves Potter)
Snowboard enthusiasts, keep in mind if you are interested in keeping the TA Snowboard Club alive please contact Linda Reeves-Potter at 802-333-4128 or . The club is open for all students, yet the VPA competition level only applies for 9-12 grades. Get to know how the students and their parents can get involved. All that is needed is a couple willing parents and students that are willing to GET FOCUSED on the outdoor sport. The club benefits involve getting to visit most of Vermont's best mountains and getting on the mountain at a reasonable cost to students and parents! Feel free to contact me for more information.
PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION
Area photographer Chris McKinley of White River Junction, Vt. will be showing "The Invisible Workers ofRailroading, " an exhibit of color photographs, at Thetford Academy in the main hall of The White Building through October 4. Chris is an alumnus of Thetford Academy, Class of 1976.
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TEACHING AND LEARNING AT TA
In this section of the PFC Calendar, we offer highlights of the school at work: what’s going on in classrooms, profiles of teachers, descriptions of student projects, and other views of the Academy community engaged in its main business—helping minds to grow.
• Students in the “Science Fiction and Fantasy” elective presented projects on books read recently, using video, dramatic readings, even a sock puppet play—not your average book report! Groups then analyzed literary elements of each work to determine genre classifications and the extent of authors’ intent to establish “autonomous worlds.”
•In Len Whitaker’s eighth-grade science classroom, a transformation is about to take place. Students are working on projects to research and model a wide variety of woodland and wetland organisms. On Parents’ Night this Thursday, the room will become a habitat full of these flora and fauna. This is the last year for this project, as science classes will move to temporary classrooms when the renovation of their building takes place.
•In English, eighth-grade students create wood block prints and haiku, as part of an integrated Japanese unit. Teacher Ray Chapin designed the project with TA art teacher Ken Cadow and poet Michiko Oishi from UVM’s Asian Studies Outreach Program. Students read and analyze Erik Christian Haugaard'sThe Samurai's Tale, study the famous Japanese wood block artist Hiroshige, and participate in a haiku workshop. This year’s prints and poems will beon exhibit in the White Buildling for Parents' Night.
• French students had a visit from a native speaker, Frederic Batier, a professional photographer who currently lives and works in Berlin. He joined teacher Karen Heinzmann and her French I class for an outdoor photo shoot last Friday—before the rains came!
•In English 10, students rehearsed short plays as part of the studies leading to the Sophomore Anthology project. Since the anthology must include two play excerpts, teacher Meghan Sterling decided it was time to perform some. Students enthusiastically agreed, bringing wigs, costumes, props, and high energy to their performances. Some of the more intriguing titles in this classroom theater festival: “Men Are from Milwaukee, Women Are from Phoenix,“ “Punch and Duty,” “Naomi in the Living Room” and more: seven in all. (Later in the year, TA’s own playwrights, the students in the Dramatic Writing course, will stage their original work in the annual Ten-Minute Play Festival.)
PROFILE: LEN WHITAKER
When he was in high school, Len Whitaker didn’t know what he’d do for a career. He thought about being a forest ranger or maybe a wildlife biologist. His way to teaching, he says, was “a long and winding road.” It began when he was at Rhode Island College studying psychology and social science, and took a part-time job at Bradley Hospital in Providence. He started as a weekend janitor in the children’s psychiatric unit, and soon found himself working with the children themselves. “I found I really enjoyed working with kids,” he says.
After graduation, he was offered a job as agriculture teacher at the Becket School in Pike, New Hampshire, managing a large organic farm as part of the residential program for adolescent boys. “Our students at Pike were a step away from jail,” Len says. “We had to know how to get kids motivated… and how to keep them from hurting each other. I learned a lot about group dynamics, managing a class. I learned what’s important and what’s not. We were all trained in non-violent crisis intervention, but I almost never had to use restraint. What mattered was building relationships. Really, it all came down to that.”
This insight has shaped his work at the Academy, where he came to work in our agricultural sciences program in 1996. “If you have five or ten minutes free and there’s a kid around, you can spend it talking, getting to know them. Find out what they like to do, what interests them. That’s the key.” At the same time, students get to see what interests Len. He now teaches science courses as well as horticulture and forestry, all subjects he loves. “Teaching, spending time in the classroom, is the best job in the world,” he says. “I get to spend my day talking with interesting people. I get to share my enthusiasm for things like ecology and astronomy. Sometimes I act kind of goofy, but I think kids see how passionate I am about these things.”
History is another passion, and he’ll be taking a course in Vermont history soon. He looks forward to learning more about historical patterns of land use, the topic most directly related to his current teaching, but he’s also fascinated by people and issues. Although he finds it hard to get time for reading during the school year—“It feels like such a luxury to just sit and read something” —he reads historical biography when he can. At the moment it’s Gandhi by Bruce Fisher, and before that Doris Kearns Goodwin’s study of the Roosevelts, Eleanor and Franklin.
Len also spends a lot of time outdoors, both with his students and otherwise. One result was a “great garden” at his home this year. He’s been canning tomatoes, harvesting winter squash, and creating a new rose garden with help from his fourth-grade daughter. His chickens are “producing nicely now,” too.
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COMMUNITY NEWS AND NOTES:
To have your community event listed here, send e-mail to Community Relations Coordinator Wendy Cole o later than the preceding Friday at 2:00 p.m. Please submit by this time, or we will be unable to include your news for the following week.
ONGOING: VOLUNTEERS NEEDED (from Loretta Gray)
The Woods Trail fund raiser is looking for people who live close to TA to help out with the concessions or would like to donate baked goods (donuts, brownies, cookies, Rice Krispy treats) for SATURDAY - OCTOBER 4TH, 2008
We will also handle the concessions for the VT State Cross Country Meet on SATURDAY - OCTOBER 25TH.
Anyone interested please contact:
Loretta Gray @ or phone 802-785-4189 evenings
Peter Boyd @ or phone 802-785-4276 evenings
ONGOING: RECREATION OPPORTUNITY (from Hilary Linehan)
New Wall Crawlers program
For ages 12 + up: Join the Thetford Wall Crawlers on Mondays from 4:30-6 PMPM at The Wall in Queechee. Learn how to rock climb at practice every week for a 10-week session beginning Oct 6. $85 fee includes shoe & harness rental ($60 if you have your own shoes & harness), t-shirt, free wall climbing during the length of the session, 10% off equipment and a pizza party at the end of the session. Coaches are needed and get benefits too! No experience necessary.
Contact Recreation Coordinator Hilary Linehan to register or with questions 785-2922 x6)
ONGOING: CRAFT CLASSES (from Suzanne Jones)
After-school classes in pottery, jewelry-making and mixed media at the Hanover League of NH Craftsmen. We offer an exciting and unusual array of classes for children ranging in age from 4 through 17. Check out our web site at Call 603 643 5384 for more information.
END PFC 9-29-08