Thetford Academy, Vermont
Thetford Academy is a coeducational independent school in Thetford, Vermont. The state's oldest secondary school, Thetford Academy celebrated its Bicentennial year in 2018–19.
An historic New England Town Academy (one of approximately 20 remaining Town Academies in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Connecticut), Thetford Academy serves as the designated public school for the town of Thetford. The school also has partnership agreements with the towns of Strafford, VT, and Lyme, NH, and serves students in an additional nine towns that have school choice: Brownsville, Chelsea, Corinth, Hartland, Orange, Sharon, Topsham, Tunbridge, and Washington, VT.
In addition, the school has tuition-paying students from towns without school choice, such as Hanover, NH, and Norwich, VT, and a small contingent of international students from such countries as China, South Korea, Greece, and Rwanda. In 2018–19, the school enrolled 301 students in grades 7-12.
Robotics
Thetford Academy boasts a successful VEX robotics program, which is the first VRC program in Vermont. Team 4886 has helped start up to 5 other VRC teams in Vermont so far this season alone.
- 2012-2013 Thetford has had a successful start to the Sack Attack season, with 4886A winning five events in New England including the New England Championship. 4886A also received the Excellence Award, qualifying for the World Championship for the third year in a row.
- 2010-2011: Team 4886A was started in 2011 for the game Round Up, and qualified for the World Championship in Orlando, Florida. The team placed 4th in a division of 101 teams.
- 2011-2012: For the Gateway season, 4886A was joined by 4886B, 4886C, and 4886D. Both A and B teams qualified for the World Championship in Anaheim, California.
Notable alumni
- Thomas Angell (professor), pastor, educator at Bates College
- Thomas W. Bicknell, historian, educator
- William E. Chandler, U.S. Senator, Secretary of Navy
- William Closson, artist
- Hannah Slade Currier, educator
- John Eaton, Civil War leader
- Louise Woodworth Foss, elocutionist
- Charles Edward Hovey, Civil War general, first president of Illinois State University
- Mary Greenleaf Clement Leavitt, temperance movement missionary
- Justin Smith Morrill, U.S. Senator
- George W. Morrison, U.S. Representative
- John B. Sanborn, lawyer, politician, Civil War general, and negotiator of treaties with Plains tribes
References
http://www.thetfordacademy.org/about-us/our-history/
Mary B. Slade, Thetford Academy's First Century: 1819-1919. Capital City Press, Montpelier, VT, 1956.
Eaton, Gen. John. Thetford Academy, Thetford, Vermont: Seventy-Fifth Anniversary and Reunion, Thursday, June 28, 1894. Republican Press Association, Concord, NH, 1895.
Fifty for 250: An Anthology of Thetford's History: 1761-2011. Thetford Historical Society, Thetford, VT, 2011.