Every January, U-32 organizes a three-day event called J-Term. During J-Term, teachers and staff choose and plan courses based on their interests. It allows for teachers to teach subjects outside of their curriculum, and it serves as a break between the two semesters. The upcoming 2026 J-Term has returning courses from previous years, as well as new ones.
One of the returning courses is deer cutting, hosted by U-32 Spanish teacher Adam French. In this course students learn everything they need to know from the moment they take the shot, to when they put the venison in the freezer. This course has been going strong for a few years, but it hasn’t always been easy. Because J-Term happens outside of hunting season, Adam has to work with the Vermont Fish and Game to get the carcass they use for the course. “This is our only option for a carcass to work with,” he said.
The carcass Adam gets from Fish and Game comes from the deer they had to put down. Because of this, one of the years the deer cutting course had no carcass to work with. Instead they watched videos and prepared for the task, but never actually did it. “I feel like we still learned something. It’s a hands-on experience, so if you never actually do a thing, you only get so much out of that,” said Adam.
Adam chose to teach deer cutting because he thought hunters often avoid doing it. “It’s useful information and useful skills for some young hunters,” he said.
Another returning course this year is the Knitting Little Monsters course with French teacher Béatrice David. It is a course for knitters with general knowledge of the skill, where they can come together and create fun little monsters to take home.
Béatrice likes that there is a large age range in J-Term. She does not usually get to teach a range of students. “I like to do something else with different students,” she said, “It brings a nice feeling.”
A new course this year is exploring other planets with science teacher Christine Fitch and Patrick Whelley, a volcanologist and school board member. The two met at a local event, and Patrick has been coming to U-32 to teach with Christine and her students.
As a NASA scientist, Patrick is an incredible resource for this J-Term. They plan to do a field trip to take some field data and study it in comparison to the geology on other planets, “The idea was to go to Wrightsville Reservoir, look at the landslide there, … and make some measurements, look at some satellite photos, and then look at some satellite photos of Mars and see if we can find similarities in order to better understand how the landslides on Mars work,” Patrick said.
Patrick is not a teacher, although he has had a number of interns over the years, “I’m excited about interacting with students local to where I live,” he said. Christine is also excited for this course,“ I love doing field work and (…) absolutely love geology,” she said.
J-Term was once during June, but it was changed because of the fact that seniors stopped coming to school during that time. January J-Term is generally agreed to be better.
“I would say the winter [courses], at least the classes I do, [feel] very mellow,” said Christine.
Béatrice likes it for other reasons.
She said, “A student can use those days to make up some work for the semester one, it’s really beneficial. Instead of starting the second semester and being kind of squished.”
J-Term is not just about what students learn, it’s also about community. Students from many different grades participate in J-Term together and this creates a fun and unique environment. Teachers also get to interact with other teachers they do not usually get to work with.
Erin Mooney, an English teacher at U-32 said, “Jade Walker and I worked together that year. It was super fun to work with her. J-Term has been, and can be, sometimes an opportunity to collaborate with teachers that you don’t [usually] get to work with.”
“Some students I have taught before; some students I haven’t. I get to meet some new students. Sometimes [there are] middle schoolers in it, so then see them again next year as ninth graders,” said Christine.
Christine said, “It’s a nice change of pace to kind of slow down for a few days.”
