Change Coming to CVSD School Buses

Dear CVSD Community,

Over the winter break, while families everywhere enjoyed the holidays, CVSD transportation received a different kind of treat; internal and external cameras for our bus fleet. These cameras, which will provide a new level of safety for our students, are scheduled to be turned on the first week of February. The following protocols will be followed:

• All surveillance camera recordings in the district will be subject to board policy, currently under review by the CVSD School Board. The policy will be posted on the District website.

• Recordings from the internal cameras are not monitored in real time and will only be viewed after an incident and at the discretion of the Superintendent of Schools. As always, incidents on our buses are handled by the CVSD Chief Operations Officer or appropriate school administrator per that school’s procedures.

• Recordings of automobiles which violate state laws regarding the passing of school buses will be turned over to the local police authority.

Cameras in CVSD are used only with the goal of improving the safety of our students. If you have any questions about the use of cameras, please contact your local principal or the CVSD COO, Jeanne Jensen, at 802-383-1234

A Special Visit to Our Schools

Dear CVSD Community,

On January 17, 2019, the Champlain Valley School District will host a team of educators from neighboring school districts, along with staff from the Vermont Agency of Education, as part of our triennial Integrated Field Review (IFR). The IFR is a review of documents, interviews with students, parents and staff, and observations of schools, designed to reveal common practices in a supervisory union or school district. Various members of this visiting team will go to all CVSD schools that day. This is a collaborative and reciprocal process; staff members from our district will visit and review neighboring school districts in the weeks that follow.

This Integrated Field Review process leads to a written report, featuring school district-level commendations and recommendations in the areas of Academic Proficiency, Personalization, Safe Healthy Schools, High-Quality Staffing and Investment Priorities, the five domains of Vermont’s Education Quality Standards. The IFR process is flexible and is not evaluative; the results of a school district’s IFR can be used at their discretion, be it to support continuous improvement planning, to create networking opportunities with neighboring districts, to guide future professional development, or other.

A sampling of students and parents may also be invited to participate in interviews with the visiting team.

Do not hesitate to reach out with any questions.

Appreciatively,

The CVSD IFR Team:

Jeff Evans
Bonnie Birdsall
Peggy-Sue Van Nostrand
Stephanie Sumner
Suzan Locke
Katherine Riley

New Math Offerings at CVU

We are excited to announce a change to the Math curriculum at CVU for the 2019-2020 school year. In the past, most incoming ninth graders have been placed into Algebra or Geometry. While this structure provided an appropriate base for future math courses, it also created a gap in practicing algebraic thinking for the courses students typically take in their 10th and 11th grade years: Algebra II, Advanced Algebra, and Trig/Pre-calculus. Next year, we will be offering two new integrated courses for incoming ninth graders called Math 1 and Math 2. This curriculum redesign will allow us to explore natural connections between Algebra and Geometry content, and add important concepts that are not currently in our curriculum. We are confident that this improved and updated approach will enhance students’ mathematical skills and understanding.

To allay concerns about our transcript and college application process, please know that this is a change that many high schools have made. For example, Mount Mansfield, South Burlington, Harwood, Mount Abraham, and Vermont Commons teach integrated math courses.

Most students will experience a pathway similar to one of these:

Grade 9		Grade 10		Grade 11		Grade 12
Math 1	➡	Math 2	➡	Algebra 2	➡	Advanced Algebra or Trig/Pre-calculus or AP Statistics
Math 2	➡	Algebra 2	➡	Tri/Pre-calculus	➡	Calculus or AP Calculus or AP Statistics
Math 1 resulting in credit for Math 1 Part 1	➡	Math 1 Part 2	➡	Math 2	➡	Algebra 2

CVSD middle school teachers will use district common target data to recommend placement in Math 1 and Math 2 at CVU. There will opportunities to discuss this change and ask questions during the teacher panels on January 24th at CVU’s 8th Grade Parent/Student Night.

CVSD Late Start/Early Release Days

We owe it to the community to keep you informed about happenings in our schools and our district. As parents know, our PreK-8 schools release students an hour early on Tuesdays and CVU starts an hour later on Mondays to allow for deeper, ongoing professional development time with our faculty and staff. We shared information from Williston's perspective in this post in November. In addition, Charlotte Central School shared this piece about the work happening on Tuesdays. 

We asked Jeff Evans, Director of Learning and Innovation for CVSD, to answer a few questions about the late start/early release time.

How is the focus on the use of that time determined?

The district chose to focus on four key areas this year, which are indicated in our continuous improvement plan. They are: Proficiency, Personalization, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (differentiating supports to ensure success for all students, based on student needs), and Social-Emotional Learning. These four topics drive the design of professional learning.

There are different models for this work in each of our schools.There may be focused cycles such as working on one initiative for a month or so, or others may rotate the focus weekly in a given month. There are consistent goals across the district.

Who facilitates the work?

Depending on the focus, the work may be facilitated by administrators, instructional coaches, coordinators, or teachers. Much of the work is done in professional learning communities (PLCs), smaller groups that are either content-specific or interdisciplinary to address instruction and strategies designed to improve learning.

How does this work build over time?

Professional learning communities spend their time following this cycle: learning about the topic, collaborating and designing, and implementing instructional strategies. They review and revisit the work over time to continually make improvements.

What impacts are we seeing as a result of the work done over the past 2.5 years?

Common learning expectations exist across the district now. You can see the result of this work on our website, https://www.cvsdvt.org/domain/373 Prior to this structure, there were greater differences around this work across district schools. Having this time provides greater depth, common district expectations for learning across all content areas, more consistent instructional strategies, and overall a more balanced, thoughtful approach to professional learning.

Teacher Perspective

A few teachers from our PreK-8 schools provided us with thoughts about the impact of that time on their work with students.

“The early release time gives us an extended, uninterrupted period of time to do the hard work of analyzing assessments, planning differentiated instruction and learning new curriculum and strategies with support and coaching.” - Michelle Lass, HCS

“I like the model of after school PD time because our work is immediately relevant to instruction and I feel like I'm getting important work done that needs to be done at that time, anyway.” - Stephanie Konowitz, HCS

“One thing I really appreciate about the early release professional development time is that we have the opportunity to look at resources for a particular content area, i.e. literacy, and explore them deeply. For example, this fall my colleagues and I did a book study about guided reading. We learned a great deal about specific strategies to support students at various stages of development. Having time to discuss this new learning and collaborate with our colleagues was very helpful and made changes easier to implement!” - Natalie Lodge, SCS

“Having a weekly time to collaborate with colleagues across grade levels and content areas has allowed us the opportunity to engage in long-term professional learning that has had a positive impact on our teaching. We are able to more regularly look at data and use this information to drive our instruction and better meet the needs of all of our learners. We have also been able to explore new programs and initiatives and implement them in our classrooms in thoughtful and effective ways.” - Miranda Johnson, HCS

“We are grateful for the early release time for two key reasons, consistency and collaboration. First, we love that every week our routine is consistent for our students, instead of the random professional development days. Secondly, it is so powerful to have two full hours to connect and collaborate with our colleagues. This is an essential time when we are able come together as a school to address our students needs.“ - Katie Fraser and Natasha Grey, CCS