Superintendent Pinckney, COO Jensen, and CVU student Ethan Lisle
Ethan speaks on behalf of CVSD
Ethan and DEC commissioner, Emily Boedecker
The Champlain Valley School District has been selected to be a partner in the Agency of Natural Resources Electric School and Transit Bus Pilot Program! The announcement reads:
"Champlain Valley stood out in both your level of support for and engagement around this pilot and our confidence in your capacity to be a great Project Partner in deploying electric buses."
At an event announcing the grant recipients on December 19, CVU student and Environmental Action Club (ENACT) member, Ethan Lisle, spoke on behalf of CVSD. The Commissioner from the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, Emily Boedecker, presented the grant award to Ethan. Superintendent Pinckney and COO Jeanne Jensen were present as well. CVSD is one of three Vermont school districts that are recipients of this grant.
On Town Meeting Day, voters will see a ballot article for our share of the cost of two electric buses (our share is the equivalent of two diesel buses, with the grant making up the substantial difference.) The purchase of two school buses is proposed as part of the continual replacement cycle to ensure that buses in our fleet are no older than 15 years. If approved, the electric buses will be based at the Allen Brook School in Williston.
The Champlain Valley School District community prides itself on being a leader in sustainable practices.This opportunity allows us to not only transport students more safely and efficiently, but to make a concrete example of living up to our values. We are excited to take such an important role in helping Vermont reduce carbon emissions and improve energy efficiency. We hope to see the electric buses rolling through CVSD next fall.
"Every year, the College of Education and Social Services (CESS) at the University of Vermont, together with Vermont supervisory unions and school districts, the Vermont Agency of Education, and the Vermont NEA, join to honor the accomplishments of our state’s outstanding educators." (from the Outstanding Teacher's Day website)
Today is Outstanding Teachers Day. CVSD's two outstanding teachers this year are Leanne Morton (CVU) and Miranda Johnson (HCS).
Miranda with HCS Principal, Suzan Locke
Leanne with CVU Principal, Adam Bunting
Principals from their schools shared the following about each of them for the ceremony.
Leanne Morton
Leanne Morton:
To observe Leanne’s classroom is to witness a collaborative, engaged, inspired community of learners. Deep Latin study is punctuated by laughter and joyful exclamations from students and teacher alike. Since 2000, Leanne has been a champion of Latin and--more importantly--teaching that puts relationships at the center of learning. To describe her classroom alone, however, is a disservice to the global education students have discovered under her guidance. From initiating trips to Italy or sustaining travel to France, Leanne has ensured that dozens of students discover a larger world. She is a model of collegiality and professionalism and lives the values of CVU.
Miranda Johnson
Miranda Johnson:
Miranda Johnson, a Hinesburg Community School Kindergarten teacher, has been selected as a 2019 Vermont Outstanding Teacher of the Year. Miranda continuously demonstrates a commitment to creating an inspirational and harmonious classroom that supports student development and achievement! She demonstrates characteristics of inspiring teaching which include enthusiasm for teaching; empathy and warmth towards all students; fostering positive relationships with all students; creating a positive learning environment; and recognizing student strengths.
I honestly do not know what I would do without Miranda as a teammate. She is organized, educated, and honestly one of the nicest people I know. I love my job, but I love it even more because I get to work side by side with one of my best friends. Miranda goes above and beyond for her students. She is constantly finding highly engaging and educational lessons. When you walk in her tidy classroom, you observe students having so much fun, they don't realize they are learning. I am so very lucky to call her my teammate and my friend. I am so proud of her and honored to work as her teaching partner!" ~ Alyssa Lasher
CVSD congratulates and thanks Leanne and Miranda for their hard work, compassion, and dedication to all students.
Thank you to Mia Brumsted, student co-president at CVU, for sharing this post and photos with us.
On Thursday night, 61 CVU students and faculty (and two dogs) slept outside in solidarity with the homeless youth in our community. Despite some rain and intense wind in the morning, the sleep out was a major success. We raised over $7,000 for Spectrum Youth and Family Services and their efforts to support homeless and at-risk youth. After the rain died down at about 11pm, many students reemerged from their tents to sing and play games around the campfire. After a chilly night with little sleep, everyone woke up early the next morning to get to clubs and classes on time in order to experience the difficulties that students with home insecurity face every day.
Here's a link to the WCAX story about the Sleepout.
CCS Omega students had a wonderful afternoon earlier this week! This visit was a collaboration around the Vermont Reads book March, Book 1, and was made possible by the Clemmons Family Farm with the support of a Schip's Grant.
Social Justice Workshop with Clemmons Family Farm
All seventh and eighth grade students participated in a workshop that touches on social justice include themes like identity, diversity, courage, and helping one another in the face of injustice. This work connects to the earlier field trip this year to CVU and the reading many did this summer of March (and other books). Four artists came in to share their own experiences and skills with the students.
Group 1
Mr. Desmont, Visual artist #1/Painting activity: The students engaged in a painting activity. He added in stories of his childhood in Haiti
Group 2
Miss Hannon, Visual artist #2/Drawing activity: The students did a line-drawing activity.
Group 3
Mr. Dyke, Musician/Musical storytelling activity: Mike brought some musical instruments and told stories of Jamaica and how music was used to combat poverty and achieve education for many young people growing up there
Group 4
Ms. Edsomwan, Poet/Poetry activity: She shared a presentation about her own story and did a poetry activity with the students.
Thanks to Karyn Lunde for the photos in this slideshow and to Heidi Huestis for sharing the details for this post.
Hinesburg Community School recognizes three students who have gone above and beyond to help hungry children in our school community. As part of their Personalized Learning Plan project (PLP), seventh-grade students Ezra Dziurzynski, Kate Roberts and Sage Peterson have been working hard to raise money to purchase food for HCS students in need.
In addition to putting a posting in Front Porch Forum and canvassing neighborhoods in Hinesburg, they designed their own website to spread the word and raise money. They managed to collect an impressive $505.00 worth of community donations! The girls then went to Lantmans, where they purchased $330.00 worth of groceries. After separating the groceries into 15 equal bags, they brought the food items to the Hinesburg Food Shelf. The students donated the remaining $175.00 to HCS to make snack packs for needy students. What an awesome group of students!
Thank you to the folks at HCS for sharing this story with us.
It's never too late to share exciting happenings as a part of the CVSD story! This project happened a few weeks ago with the 6th graders at Shelburne Community School. Teacher Diana Rich contributed the following to help describe the work.
This was our 3rd year doing a project based learning partnership with the Shelburne Museum and we were supported by the museum educators, Mollie Davis and Holly Miller.
The driving question for this project is: "How do we as historians create a digital tour that engages middle level students?"
At the project launch, students experienced a "boring tour" and then they were presented with the task of creating a digital tour. The students gathered evidence and analyzed evidence from the museum and created a digital map using the platform ThingLink.
If you walk into Williston Central School any time soon, you're bound to notice some incredible new art greeting you. Teachers Julie Rogers and Sara Beeken submitted and were awarded a CVSD Innovation Grant to make this possible. Artist-in-residence, Sally Duback, worked with students to create these powerful, bright, and welcoming installations. Julie provided us with more information about the project and outlined the next phase.
The smaller of the 2 murals (4' x 6') is entitled "All Are Welcome" and was completed by 3rd and 4th graders. It is located in the front entrance on the left as you enter the building. That space has particularly nice lighting and welcomes everyone into the building. The larger of the 2 murals (6' x 12') is just inside the back entrance to the building which gets a lot of traffic as well. That mural is entitled " Sustainable Vermont".
Students were asked to make drawings about the themes of diversity & inclusion and sustainability. Students began by discussing what the themes meant to them and then sketched designs. The student sketches were sent to Sally Duback who took bits and pieces from them, traced them onto good old fashioned overhead paper, and composed a cohesive piece with many students' work represented in each. The students took that design and using an overhead projector then copied the design onto the large wooden mural boards (1 board for the smaller one and 3 boards for the larger one). Then the painting began. First backgrounds and sky, then outlining and detail, all the while adding layers and shading. Finally they added shadows and touch up work. It was really an amazing process to watch. Sally is amazing!
We have an artist scheduled for January and another in March which center around photography and kinetic art. There is a possible 3rd artist but we haven't worked out the details for that as of yet.
The CVSD Food Service program has incorporated Vermont Harvest of the Month into its menus. From their website: "Vermont Harvest of the Month is a program run by three nonprofit organizations in the Green Mountain state to promote seasonal eating, encourage healthy diets and support the local economy. We provide ready to go materials for the classroom, cafeteria, and community that promotes the use of local, seasonal Vermont foods."
The November food is sweet potato! Our food service directors will share information and special additions to the menus throughout the month. We encourage you to supplement the learning and recipes at home as well. Here are some tips and recipes for home use.
You can also visit the November Sweet Potato page from Vermont Harvest of the Month to view additional recipes.
Creamy Sweet Potato Apple Soup
** Have you seen the updated menu page for our K-8 schools on the website? Nutrition and allergen information is now available for the main meals! We'll share more about that soon.
Last Friday we were walking from the school district's offices in Shelburne across the parking lot to the new Shelburne town library. We were going there to hang flyers for the upcoming Community Budget Meeting on October 7th. (7:00 pm, CVU room 160!) The Pierson Library just completed an entire rebuild and it opened a week ago. It's a beautiful building.
As we got closer to the library, we spotted a teacher from the Shelburne Community School, Vasanthi Meyette, along with a group of 6th grade students. They were painting on the pavement in front of the new library's front door! Here's the story that Vasanthi shared about what was underway:
We met Kristen from the Winooski Natural Resources Conservation District last year during our Ecosystems/Water Quality Unit. She came to talk about runoff/storm water and the pollution from our daily lives and it’s affect on our local waterways. This fall Rethink Runoff sponsored a storm drain mural art contest with the Stream Team. The murals were to be painted in Shelburne! We decided to enter. Students worked alone or in partnerships, explored the Rethink Runoff website, and looked at other storm drain murals. They got inspired and drew some amazing designs and came up with many catchy slogans. We eagerly awaited the news about our designs. Finally, we found out that our designs had not been chosen, BUT, one of the artists whose design was chosen needed at least 50 community members to participate in painting her design! Kristen thought of my 6th graders. Julie Holmes, the artist, is a former SCS parent and now a CCS parent. She graciously connected with us and invited us to collaborate on the mural. She visited us earlier in the week so that we could talk about design, her vision and practice painting water drops. Today was the highlight when we actually got to leave our mark! We are so lucky that it is at the library for all to see and for students to show their families!
After that, we talked with Kristen to hear more about this and the partnership between the Winooski Natural Resource Conservation District and the Department of Public Works. We found out that another mural was being painted outside of the Shelburne Country Store practically across the street. We went over there and found two CVU students hard at work on a beautiful fall day. Heatheranne Lee also won the contest and her friend Muriel Spell was helping her paint the design.
We are thrilled to see students from CVSD contributing artistically and making a difference in our communities. Go to Shelburne to see the finished products!
Vermont author, Ann Braden, came to visit and work with Charlotte 5th and 6th graders yesterday. She highlighted her process of writing and collecting ideas for her stories. She helped the students analyze the strengths and obstacles the main character, Zoey, experienced. She then gave each student an individual octopus temporary tattoo to remind them to always look for their own internal strengths and the strengths of others.
From her website: Ann's debut middle grade novel The Benefits of Being an Octopus was listed as one of NPR’s Best Books of 2018, received a starred review from School Library Journal, and was described by Newbery award-winner Karen Hesse as “a compassionate look at poverty, hard choices, and defending one’s right to be treated humanely.”
We thank Ann for visiting the Charlotte Central School and for inspiring students in many ways.
Michael Kellogg, a third and fourth grade teacher at the Williston Central School, has taken storytelling to a new level. He and his students discovered the power of gathering and telling their own stories. He has branched out into the community to inspire others to share their stories. Along the way, Michael and his students have learned about resilience, healing, and empathy.
Michael was recently featured in an article in Seven Days. This piece tells more about his work in Williston and how it's expanded to enrich the larger community on many levels. An event at the Black Box Theater in Burlington last weekend was one powerful piece of this work.
Thank you, Michael, for sharing your story with us and for your work with Williston students.
The directors and staff of the Champlain Valley School District Child Nutrition Program would like to welcome you back to another exciting school year. We’ve been working hard over the summer to make some changes to our Food Service Program that we think you’ll like.
Our four separate K – 8 food service programs have been consolidated into a single, c ohesive system. We are dedicated to serving nutritious, balanced, fresh meals that your child will love! Our philosophy is that children will make good food choices when presented with a variety of attractive, wholesome options in pleasant surroundings.
We follow the USDA guidelines for a healthy meal which emphasize whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and low- fat dairy products with limits on sodium, saturated fats, trans fat and calories.
Here are the changes you and your child will see this fall:
The Hinesburg, Charlotte, Williston Central, Allen Brook, and Shelburne Schools will now be offering a consistent daily lunch offering. The menu is posted on the district website as well as linked to your school newsletter
The online menu contains nutritional and allergen information for the daily specials. Our K- 8 schools will continue to offer other food choices your child currently enjoys, such as our salad bars. We will be adding these items to the website during the year.
Consistent with our wellness initiative we will be removing some less nutrient dense a la carte items from our K- 4 student lunch options. Schools which currently offer these “smart snacks” will continue to do so for middle school students only, emphasizing to them the value in making healthy choices.
What can you do to help? If your child already participates in the school meal program, thank you! Please let us know if you like the changes. If you are not a regular customer, give school lunches a try! The higher the rate of participation, the more resources we have to purchase and offer high quality foods.
If you have questions or comments, reach out to your local food service director or district COO Jeanne Jensen at jjensen@cvsdvt.org.
After many months of planning and a summer of reading, for some, the first CVSD Common Read culminated in the Celebration Day last Thursday. Over 1300 students, representing all of the district's 4th, 6th, 8th, and 9th graders participated in a day of connecting, collaborating, expanding, and building empathy around the theme of social justice. The day was a great success!
As the students arrived they all went into the gym at CVU to sit by grade. That was the first opportunity for the 4th, 6th, and 8th grade students to mix with peers from other schools. Jeff Evans, CVSD's Director of Learning and Innovation, welcomed everyone and then Libby, a 6th grader from Hinesburg, introduced the keynote speaker. Here's an excerpt from her introduction:
When I first heard about the Common Read I was unsure why we were doing any of this. After reading A Good Kind of Trouble I realized that understanding social justice is important, and that we are all very lucky to have this experience. “Social justice means equal rights, opportunity, and treatment for all.” Reading Preaching to the Chickens, Ghost Boys, A Good Kind of Trouble, and March: Book One allowed us to understand some major social justice issues, both past and present.
“When making new friends, find those with the same values, not necessarily those that look like you.”
After the keynote, students were divided into groups by grade level, but mixed by school, about 10 groups for each grade. There was quite a bit of coordination to get everyone into their group with the adults who would be their guide for the day, but it worked. At this point, about half of the group (650 students!) stayed in the gym to learn about the art project, and the other half went to workshops.
The 8th and 9th grade groups went to the auditorium where the following things took place:
Student Leaders from CVU's Racial Alliance Committee presented on bias, prejudice, and stereotypes; and they worked to promote room for growth, opportunity, and social well-being in the CVSD community by bringing race to participants' awareness.
CVU Librarian Christina Deeley led a session on examining social justice through photographs, focusing on Teaching Tolerance's four-level equity lens of identity, diversity, justice, and action.
CVU Librarian Peter Langella led a text protocol based on an excerpt from Samira Ahmed's Internment, again focusing on identity, diversity, justice, and action.
While this was happening for half of the whole group, the balance were introduced to a massive collaborative art project, led by Shelburne Community School's art teacher, Pete Boardman. Students were paired up, 4th with 8th graders and 6th with 9th graders, and each student designed a feather. Five very large wings were created by the end of the day, comprised of feathers from each student and many of the adults as well. These will become installations in each school's library - signifying that reading books gives us wings.
Because the weather was glorious, all of the groups went outside to eat. Seeing them mixed by school and getting to know one another was fabulous. There were students outside of CVU's cafeteria, on the hill, on the football field and bleachers, and even on the baseball field.
After lunch, everyone switched activities; those who did the art project went to workshops while those who had been in workshops created their feathers. Somehow, all of the students returned to the gym to finish out the day, say goodbye to their group leaders and new friends from the other schools, and board buses back to their home school.
At Charlotte Central School, a new display with reflections from the day is available for all to see. Here are a few photos of that.
In the late spring, all students who would be entering 4th, 6th, 8th, and 9th grades in August received a copy of a book at kickoff assemblies in each school. The books varied by grade level, but all focused on a central theme of racial equity. The Vermont Reads book this year is March: Book One, by Andrew Aydin and John Lewis. CVSD expanded upon the theme to include that book and other books for a variety of grade levels.
Now that school is underway we will gather all of those students, along with teachers, for a special culminating day to celebrate, connect, and expand together at CVU on Thursday, September 5.
CVU's Racial Alliance Committee for 8th and 9th graders to better understand racism and build empathy.
Closing Remarks and photos with the collaborative art project
The purpose of the day is to celebrate the Common Read books students received before the summer break, connect with their peers across the district, and expand on the themes of the books through an author’s keynote speech, workshops, and a collaborative art project. We anticipate a wonderful day to bring together our district around literacy and empathy building.
We are very excited to bring students together in what we hope is the first of many district-wide collaborative events. We will post photos and more afterward.
Geo Debrosse just finished swimming across Lake Champlain for his 8th grade PLP project!
Geo is a rising 9th grader at CVU. One of his former Hinesburg teachers, Jen Bradford shared the following about Geo's accomplishment this summer.
"He set a goal that was meaningful and relevant to him—and that could be considered a personal stretch—and set about attaining it. It was clear he was passionate about it and committed to the action. He realized it could be something this powerful; he never looked back or thought about just taking an easier route. It’s pretty amazing what he did. I’m super proud of him—we all are—but what is really cool is that he will have this memory forever and is super proud of himself."
All students in our district are engaged in personalized learning, starting at least in the 7th grade and continuing at CVU through 12th grade with other passion-driven projects.
The devoted and talented CVSD maintenance and facilities crews have been hard at work over the summer. Here's an update on some of the work that was done. We thank them for their hard work and commitment to ensuring that our buildings and grounds are safe and welcoming for students and families. Some schools were able to supply us with more detailed updates than others, but rest assured with the knowledge that there has been a tremendous amount of great work done in all CVSD locations!
Charlotte:
Chris and the entire crew have been working tirelessly to prepare our school for our big opening only days away. This summer they have really outdone themselves:
7/8 Learning Center- Updo!
New ceiling tiles have been put into several classrooms.
We replaced the water line to the building then a couple of weeks later the well pump died. So we have a new main water system at this point. The water has been tested and all was good.
The band room had a makeover, including new paint and now has some character. It also got a new floor.
There is a new ADA ramp and stairs at the east entrance (MPR Hall) This will be a big improvement.
The Quonset hut is torn down! There will be a small hole there for this school year. We are planning now for a new garage and additional parking. This will be for next year's budget.
We are painting a few classrooms on the second floor now and hope to get as many done as we can. We apologize for those rooms we didn't get to. We will get to them next summer.
We removed another folding wall and put in a permanent wall in the primary hall as well as new ceiling tile in the 2 rooms.
There is one more thing that people will notice in several locations (gyms, cafeteria, and on the outside of the building), there are BLUE STROBE LIGHTS. These are meant to notify people in areas where it is loud, that there is an emergency. This was part of the safety grant money we received last year.
Starting the week of the 12th the front sidewalk will be removed and replaced for safety. If you come in to CCS during that time, you may need to seek an alternate route.
Hinesburg:
Thanks to Tim and his crew, the building is again looking incredible! There are shiny floors, new paint, clean windows, and many other improvements big and small. They deserve a huge thank you for their outstanding job getting our school ready to welcome back the kids. When you do come in, be sure to have a look at our re-sanded gym floor, our new scoreboard, and thanks to our makerspace group, a much improved makerspace next to the library.
In addition, we installed an additional set of doors in our front entryway that will require visitors to be buzzed into an entry holding area, and then buzzed in a second time by our administrative assistants.Our side entrance will now remain locked, including during drop-off and pick-up. This means that all students and parents/guardians will need to enter the building through the front entrance. Drivers will still drop off students in the side parking lot, but then students will walk around to the front of the building and enter through the main doors. At the end of the day, students will still dismiss from various doors, but entry by non staff members to our building will always funnel through the more secure front door. A final change is that the front entrance will be unlocked from 7:30-8:15 am, and then again at 2:30pm. On early dismissal days, we will unlock the front door at 1:30.
Shelburne:
Our rain garden in probably the biggest summer improvement that we can show off thus far. All of our sidewalk curbs are currently being re-done.
In Williston, cracked concrete paths were replaced for improved safety and appearance. Acoustic panels were installed in WCS Design and Tech Space.
Summer cleaning: Thanks to Lyall and the crew, corridors are scrubbed from carpet to ceiling so they gleam for the start of school year.
CVU:
We've replaced half of the seating in the gym with new bleacher seats, replaced doors to the building to increase security, reorganized the Library, replaced furniture in the Business labs, and finished a conference room in the Learning Center.
The Champlain Valley School District has a growing number of English Language Learners (ELL students). As of May 2019, there were 127 ELL students in the district, with the largest percentage of those students in Williston. There's a district team of talented ELL teachers supporting students in classrooms and in our schools. More information about the ELL program can be found on their website.
Two of our schools provide summer opportunities for English Language Learners. Some of the educators associated with the camps shared updates about their focus and happenings this summer.
Shelburne The ELL Summer Camp at Shelburne is always a blast! The purpose of our camp is to provide authentic experiences in the Vermont Community to facilitate the practice of social language and academic language. Students build relationships with other ELL students in the school as well as adults/places in the Vermont community. Each year we have a different theme. This year we are exploring the subject of postcards and writing about new experiences. See their visit with Elaine Pinckney!
Williston Our theme in Williston this summer is Farm-To-Table and we are visiting local farms each week. The students are making their own snacks with local ingredients, and each week they make a different style book to document their experiences. Campers also start each morning by journaling about experiences from the previous day, and gluing photographs into their journals.
