Vermont Day School families gathered at Shelburne Beach recently to reconnect, welcome new students and faculty, and to celebrate its 5th anniversary. In 2015, Vermont Day School opened its doors with 12 students, 4 faculty, and a powerful vision. Today, that vision is being realized, and continues to grow, as the school celebrates its 5thyear of operation and begins the 2019-20 school year with 64 students in grades K-8.
“To think that our first 8th grade class of students will be graduating this spring is really exciting!” -Sage Bagnato, Founder and Head of School.
Bagnato, who has over 25 years of experience in education, had dreamed of starting a new school for many years. “It has been such a rewarding experience to see our school community grow over the past 5 years. Starting a new school was an ambitious undertaking. I am thankful for the many contributions of our Board, families, faculty, and community partners who have made the school’s success possible.”
One of those supporters is founding Board Chair, Ed Wilkens. “Throughout my 44 year career in education, colleagues and I would occasionally dream about starting our own school,” said Wilkens. ”Passion, possibilities, and people fueled those conversations, but we never took the leap to do it. Years later, I met Sage, and she reignited similar dreams with her own powerful vision for what has become the wonderfully effective and successful Vermont Day School. I remain inspired and humbled to have been a small part of making Vermont Day School a very special learning community.”
The mission of Vermont Day School is to foster skills, knowledge, personal attributes, and work habits that enable children to thrive effectively, meaningfully and joyously in the world of today and tomorrow. The school realizes this mission through high quality project-based learning, which not only is a rich and engaging learning experience, but also prepares students to be 21stcentury creative thinkers and problem solvers. Community partnerships with organizations like Shelburne Farms, Ben & Jerry’s, Lake Champlain Chocolates, Seventh Generation, and Burton have enhanced the student learning experience outside of the classroom.
The school, located near Route 7 in Shelburne, has nearly outgrown its current space and has plans to build an addition to accommodate new classrooms, a dedicated space for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), and a community gathering space. “We are growing with intention,” confirms Bagnato. “We are in need of a larger space to accommodate student demand and to fully realize our vision for building community partnerships, high quality STEM curriculum, and quality project-based learning.”
Founded in 2015, Vermont Day School is an independent, non-profit school that prepares K-8 students to be passionate learners, creative thinkers, effective collaborators and responsible global citizens in the 21st century. To learn more about Vermont Day School visitwww.vtdayschool.org.
