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Vermont Academy Welcomes Rebecca Plona as Dean of Curriculum and Academic Affairs
Vermont Academy is thrilled to welcome Rebecca Plona to the community in a newly created role, Dean of Curriculum and Academic Affairs, beginning in July 2026. Following a national search that attracted nearly 100 applicants, Rebecca quickly rose to the top for her depth of curricular expertise, her steady academic leadership, and her ability to connect vision to practice. In this role, she will help honor Vermont Academy’s 150 years of academic excellence while shaping a teaching and learning environment rooted in the school’s four pillars—Land, Community, Ingenuity, and Independence—and oriented toward the next 150 years.
Rebecca comes to Vermont Academy from Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, Connecticut, where she has served as Director of Academic Growth since 2013 and as a member of the Senior Academic Leadership Team. At Porter’s, she played a central role in the school’s evolution toward mastery learning and a project-based curriculum, leading work that spanned program and policy development, instructional coaching, faculty growth, and innovative curriculum design. Her thirty years in the classroom include teaching English, history, psychology, and a range of interdisciplinary courses.
Her prior leadership experience also includes serving as a teacher and Academic Dean at Wolfeboro Camp School, and she currently serves on the Board of Trustees at The Buxton School. Rebecca holds an M.A. in Psychology from Vermont College/Union Institute, an M.Ed. in Special Education from Boston University, and an A.B. in Sociology and Anthropology from Middlebury College.
Throughout the interview process, colleagues were struck by Rebecca’s ability to listen deeply, build alignment, and lead change with clarity and care. One member of the search committee shared, “She has a warm presence and a way of asking questions that invites you to lean in and know you’re being heard. She inspired me to listen more carefully to my colleagues and feel like we’re all pulling together.” Others noted her capacity to “thread all aspects of Vermont Academy into a single stream—linking curriculum, people, and purpose with intention.”
As Dean of Curriculum and Academic Affairs, Rebecca will serve as the school’s chief academic officer, overseeing curriculum, faculty growth, academic policy, and accreditation, while supporting coherence across Vermont Academy’s Saxtons River campus, Vermont Academy at Mount Snow, and Vermont Academy at Liceo Europeo in Madrid. She will also help advance Vision 2030 and strengthen the Center for Teaching & Learning as a hub for professional growth and instructional excellence.
“Rebecca is precisely the type of leader VA needs in this moment,” said Mike Peller, Head of School. “She leads through relationships and through questions; she seeks opportunity and joy in moments of tension; and she has built and refined a playbook to move from idea into implementation—and further into healthy excellence.”
Vermont Academy looks forward to welcoming Rebecca and her family to Saxtons River and to the leadership, care, and creativity she will bring to the academic life of the school at this pivotal moment in its history.
Vermont Academy is a coed college preparatory boarding and day school in southern Vermont, serving grades 9-12 plus a postgraduate year.
