Message from the Headmaster – Alumni & Friends
September 2025
Dear St. Johnsbury Academy Alumni and Friends,
The warmest of greetings to you all at the start of the 2025-2026 school year at St. Johnsbury Academy. I’m writing to share a few updates and reflections—you are such an important part of the Academy family, and we want you to know what’s happening on campus and in our planning conversations.
The school year officially began on August 27th, marked by great energy from students, faculty, and staff. With one of the largest freshman classes to date—244 students—and a total enrollment of 999 students (162 boarding and 837 day students), we immediately began connecting as a community, exploring opportunities both inside and outside the classroom, and engaging in deep learning.
We are fortunate to have both a cohort of teachers who have been here for many years, and a new, early-career cohort who are bringing their energy, ideas, and optimism to what we do at the Academy.
Our theme for the 2025-2026 school year expresses that energy—“Optimism fuels…Opportunity, Innovation, and Connection.” When I first encountered St. Johnsbury Academy six years ago, I was moved by the school’s commitment to “deep optimism regarding young people.” Since then, I have seen how this optimism moves our community and is one of its foundational, indispensable values.
Optimism fuels both our daily work and our thinking about the future. All of our values as a school make us special—our commitment to a wide range of opportunities, strong relationships and connections in our community, and our insistence on kindness and respect. Optimism, as a posture toward our beliefs and one another, stands up all these other qualities of character and collective endeavor.
We are currently preparing for our ten-year accreditation visit from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC)—a process of self-study and reflection on who we are and where we want to go as a school, all in the spirit of continuous improvement. Earlier this week, we emailed alumni to invite you to share your perspectives through a survey. Your responses will assist us with our self-study ahead of the visits by the accreditation team in 2026. Please take the time to complete this survey. Your voice matters in shaping the Academy’s future. The survey is open until Monday, September 22nd and can be found at this link: https://surveys.neasc.org/s3/F26-NEASC-CIS-Alumni-Survey?id=23
We are always discussing what new forces might be affecting the Academy and the educational landscape more broadly. This year, that means we’re looking at physical health as a requisite for mental health and well-being; how to teach students more about dangerous behaviors like vaping; and how we want to use the tools that the ongoing development of Artificial Intelligence is making available to all of us, for good and not-so-good. We have an interdisciplinary AI Advisory Council working on what policies and philosophical approaches we need as we grapple with, in many ways, a new world in which to teach and learn.
I invite you to keep up to date with happenings at SJA this school year. In addition to regular updates from our Alumni team, you can read the latest news here or sign up for our weekly school e-news. We’d love to hear from you, too. Share your updates anytime by filling out the Class News Form, or via email at sjaalumni@stjacademy.org.
We are so grateful for your continued connection to the Academy. Whether you visit campus, support our programs, or share your story, you are and will always be an essential member of our community.
Gratefully,
Dr. Sharon Howell
Headmaster