School News

Four Vermont Day School Students Place in State Essay Contest

Congratulations to Vermont Day School 8th grader Oonagh Guyer (South Burlington), the winner of this year’s Lincoln Essay
contest! Hosted annually by Hildene, President Lincoln’s family’s estate, 8th grade students from across the state were asked to submit essays focused on civil discourse and difficult subjects. The topic of this year’s essay was censorship and the rise of book bans in the United States. 

Vermont Day School Delivers over 1,000 LBS of Food to Shelburne Food Shelf

Students at Vermont Day School loaded boxes of donations onto their school bus and delivered 1,005 pounds of food, including fresh produce, to the Shelburne Food Shelf. The Food Drive is an annual event for Vermont Day School with this collection surpassing their goal of 1000 pounds! 

The 4th and 5th grade class led the initiative along with their teacher, Becca Auritt. ”The Food Drive is an authentic leadership opportunity for our students, and a great way to teach students to be active and supportive community members,” said Auritt. The 4th and 5th graders inspired fellow families and students to participate in the Food Drive by presenting to the whole school at an assembly, posting signs around school, and charting the school’s progress towards meeting their collection goal. 

The food drive was the culmination of the 4/5 class latest Global Studies project based learning unit where students learned about food insecurity in the United States. They met with local nonprofit leaders, visited the Statehouse and sat in on a working session to pass the school meals bill, visited a grocery store to predict a weekly food budget and culminated their learning by designing the drive for the Shelburne Food Shelf.   

Vermont Day School will host the first Young Inventors’ Program Invention Fair in Vermont on Saturday, March 11. Student inventors are needed to participate!

The Invention Fair is open to all K-8 students in Vermont. Participants come up with an invention, create a poster and prototype to show their idea, and present it to a team of judges. Top finishers in each age group have the opportunity to go to the regional Invention Fair at the University of New Hampshire. All participants receive an inventor’s journal and certificate.

For more information click HERE.

Register HERE by March 1st.

If you see our Middle School students washing cars, selling plants, or making spaghetti dinners, it means they are actively fundraising for their opportunity to travel to Costa Rica this spring.

Students in grades 6-8 will be experiencing an 8 day environmental conservation travel experience in Costa Rica. There, they will assist biologists with vital wildlife conservation projects in the Cloud Forests of Monteverde, zipline through the rainforest on a Cloud Forest canopy your, track endangered jaguars and ocelots using remote camera traps, visit a local school, tour an organic cocoa and coffee farm, and more!

Learn More: Vermont Day School Costa Rica Itinerary 2023

Vermont Day School is pleased to announce the addition of a Merit Scholarship program for prospective students entering  3rd, 4th and 5th grades. Scholarships are awarded to motivated learners with strong academic skills, who exemplify the guiding principles of Vermont Day School. 

Vermont Day School is proud to have provided in person learning during the global pandemic, but recognizes the need of students who experienced learning loss due to COVID in other school settings. We hope that merit scholarship awards will be a Vermont Day School education more accessible to more families in our community. 

See the Merit Scholarship Program page for more details and to apply!

This week marked the culmination of a very special CLIC week for Vermont Day School students. CLIC stands for Create, Learn, Innovate, and Celebrate. 

Students began with an all school field trip to BETA Technologies, an electric aerospace company in South Burlington, to learn about specific aspects of the company. Rotating to different stations they saw the ALIA aircraft up close, visited a charging station, learned how electric energy is created, and even sat in the flight simulator!

BETA Technologies, an entrepreneurial leader in its field, then charged the students with their project assignment for the week: design and create a book that can teach other children about the work of BETA Technologies. “We at BETA think it is just as important to engage and inspire the next generation of engineers and pilots as it is to move the aerospace industry forward today,” said Sarah DeShaw, Team Member at BETA. “Team BETA is working every day to create a better, more sustainable future and to us, that’s something our entire community can get involved in together.” 

Vermont Day School students spent the week conducting research and interviewing BETA experts. Each student, from PreK to 8th grade, was involved in the artwork and writing of the chapters. Elementary students focused on the story of the ALIA aircraft. Older students studied the history, company culture, innovative technology, sustainable business practices, and the future plans for BETA Technologies.  

“BETA’s culture and engineering design principles of ‘make it, try it, do it, break it, and do it again’ resonate strongly with our approach to STEM education,’ remarked Sage Bagnato, head of school for Vermont Day School. “This is an invaluable learning experience for our students and we are grateful for this partnership with Beta Technologies.”

The final product was presented to Beta Technologies at the end of the week and will be shared with children and students in the community for years to come.  

Vermont Day School is pleased to welcome Sarah C. Merrill MSN, APRN, JD to the Board of Directors.

Sarah has been a part of the Vermont Day School community since 2018 and is the parent of two current VDS Middle School students. Sarah is a strong believer in independent schools. She attended Indian Mountain School and The Hotchkiss School, both in Connecticut, where she grew up as a faculty child to her educator parents. She values the opportunities that a private school education afforded her both academically and athletically and is eager to inspire the same for all students who attend Vermont Day School. 

In addition to her enthusiasm for independent school education, Sarah brings to the Board her experience as a child and adolescent psychiatric nurse practitioner at the University of Connecticut Health Center. She also served as an attorney specializing in health care law and medical malpractice defense at a firm in Waterbury, Connecticut and health care quality and risk management for the State of Vermont Department of Mental Health and BCBSVT.  Sarah lives in Fayston, Vermont with her husband and two children who are deeply involved in hockey, baseball, skiing, horseback riding, and soccer.

Students at Vermont Day School loaded boxes of donations onto their school bus and delivered 1,043 pounds of food and hygiene items as well as 200 handmade, kid-friendly snack bags, and fresh banana bread to the Shelburne Food Shelf. The Food Drive, led by the 4/5 Class, and the VDS Day of Service are annual events for Vermont Day School, which were combined this year to increase awareness and impact. 

The VDS Day of Service, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. is a day “on” for students in Pre-K through 8th grade at Vermont Day School.  The tradition began two years ago and has become a meaningful day for the school community, families and students alike, to come together and reflect on the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the importance of service to others.

During the month of January, students learned about the concept of food insecurity. They invited Shelburne Food Shelf Board Members, Georgine Grover, and Dana Valentine to a Zoom assembly to talk about the Shelburne Food Shelf, who they serve, and how it all works. Students learned that before the Pandemic, about 1 in 10 Vermont families were food insecure. That number is now 1 in 3 families. This emphasized the importance of the Food Shelf in the community and inspired Vermont Day School to collect as much food as possible. 

”The Food Drive is an authentic leadership opportunity for our students, and a great way to teach students to be active and supportive community members”

Vermont Day School’s 6th Annual Gingerbread Festival structures will be on display at the Pierson Library. This year’s theme is “Oh the Places You’ll Go” with a nod toward travel and our desire to get out and see the world, post COVID. Students and families in grades Prek -8th grade designed and built the structures, which are entirely edible. The festival was judged by local “celebrities”, Kevin Clayton of Village Wine and Coffee, and Courtney Mulcahy of Shelburne Farms. The structures are now on display at the Pierson Library for the community to view until December 21st.