Ken LaRocque

Ken LaRocque retired in June of 2019 after spending over 4 decades in independent schools. LaRocque was raised in Chicopee, Massachusetts and graduated from the Phillips Exeter Academy in 1971. He attended Harvard College and graduated in 1975 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government. During college, Ken tutored mathematics at the Charles River Academy in Cambridge, Massachusetts and worked with marginalized youth in the Community Aftercare Program for the State of Massachusetts. Following college, Ken joined the faculty of the Rectory School in Pomfret, Connecticut and spent four years as a teacher, coach, dormitory master, and administrator. Ken left Rectory to pursue his graduate degree in education at Harvard University. In 1982, he received his EdM with a concentration in Educational Leadership.

Ken was appointed to the faculty of Avon Old Farms in September of 1981. The following year he was named the dean of students and the director of college counseling, a position in which he served for well over a decade. In 1994, Ken was promoted to associate headmaster and was charged with leading the day-to-day operations of the school.

In 1998, Ken was elected as the sixth headmaster of Avon Old Farms and he served in that capacity for 21 years. During his 38 years at Avon, Ken was active on numerous educational boards and in many related organizations including; The Headmasters Association, the International Boys School Coalition, the National Association of Independent Schools, the Connecticut Association of Independent Schools, the Founders League, the WALKS Foundation, the SPHERE Foundation, the National Association of College Admissions Counseling, and the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.

During his tenure, Ken successfully led AOF on two capital campaigns in which well over $100 million was raised, and through an important campus improvement program in which the square footage of the facilities more than doubled. Additionally, he championed the emergence of the visual and performing arts, community service, and robotics and engineering programs at school. Ken wholeheartedly embraced the school’s mission of “cultivating young men of integrity who honor wisdom, justice, inclusion, service and the pursuit of truth”.  

Now residing in the Saratoga Springs area of New York with his wife, Heidi, Ken hopes that his experience in schools will help him to support the Talcott Mountain Science Center and Academy.