Seal of Biliteracy, Part Two

The Seal of Biliteracy at CVSD

Contributed by: Johanna Shaw-Daniels, Robyn Suarez,

Susan Simpson, and Melita Sedic-Lawton

Last May we wrote about the CVSD Pathway to the Seal of Biliteracy Program. The following is an update to that post.


The Seal of Biliteracy is a fairly new award given by the Vermont Foreign Language Association, under the authorization of the Agency of Education. It recognizes students who have studied and attained proficiency in two or more languages by high school graduation.

Since 2020, CVU High School has had two recipients of this award, and our program is growing. This year, so far, we have five seniors graduating with this award. In CVSD's elementary and middle schools, there are approximately 30+ active participants working towards this achievement through our Pathway to the Seal of Biliteracy program. The Pathway program is designed specifically for our younger multilingual students, with classes focusing on their heritage languages.

This year, classes are being offered at WCS in Nepali, Chinese, Russian and Vietnamese. Some of these classes will be offered at SCS as well. At the high school, students are participating in French and Spanish classes, forming conversational groups in the CLD Center, and studying independently. Students’ enthusiasm for participating in the Pathway program has been wonderful to see! Before the 8-week sessions began, students frequently asked when their heritage language instruction would begin. In addition, ABS has launched Lunch Bunches, an opportunity for students to eat together while chatting with a volunteer in their heritage language. The warm relationships students develop with their language instructors and with each other as multilingual learners has been invaluable.

Please view this graphic to learn more about the many benefits of multilingualism, and the photos of CVSD students enjoying their heritage language learning.

Russian Heritage Language Class

Practicing Chinese characters

Vietnamese Heritage Language Class

Nepali Heritage Language Class

CVSD Sets a Penguin Plunge Record

The annual Penguin Plunge event, a fundraiser for Special Olympics Vermont, was canceled this year due to the extremely cold temperatures on February 4. Those who had signed up to participate, as teams or individuals, were encouraged to find another way to show their support for this great organization. Once again, CVSD schools came through. The total raised by teams representing all of our schools came in at over $53,000! 

Thank you to the organizers, students, faculty, staff, parents and caregivers who dedicated their time to raising funds and to those who created alternate events to keep the spirit strong.

Shelburne

The Shelburne Community School Plungers, led by student Gray Latka, raised $5589! They organized an alternate event at Shelburne Beach on February 20th.

Charlotte

Charlotte's team, made up of 12 staff members called CCS and Company, held an alternate event at Charlotte Town Beach on February 15, raising $4104 for Special Olympics Vermont! 

Hinesburg

Hinesburg Community School's team, led by Paul Lasher, had 46 participants. 35 of those were there to plunge into Lake Iroquois on Saturday, February 11. They raised just over $12,000! See the NBC5 story below.

Williston
On Saturday, February 11, 35 brave Williston penguins assembled in the WCS parking lot - seated in a circle on cold metal folding chairs, waiting for a “Bucket buddy” to dump an ice cold bucket of water over their heads.

They counted down from 10, and then went around the circle. A few brave souls even volunteered to take a 2nd bucket for the cause! It was a crisp sunny day - and the Wildcat spirit was alive and well.

The team felt great about honoring the generous donations raised that totaled over $16,400 - Wow! In fact, for the first time, our Williston Team was the top fundraiser among the school teams signed up for the event this year.

Shout outs go to Emily Downing-Ponce, Ingrid Luby, Sam Beatson, Lauren Goracy, and Cathy Kohlasch - all who helped to make the event possible.
 

CVU

The massive effort by CVU, always a top fundraiser, did not disappoint this year. They raised $15,544 in support of Special Olympics Vermont! When we get more information, we will add it here. 

We are so proud of all who organized, participated, and donated to this great event. Thank you CVSD!

 

2023 Articles on the CVSD Ballot

 

This is another post in a series to update you on the upcoming 2023-2024 proposed school district budget. 

In our previous post, we provided voters with information about the school district’s proposed budget. In addition to seeing the ballot article about the proposed budget, voters will also see these additional articles on the ballot.

Article VIII – The FUND BALANCE QUESTION: this question requests permission from the taxpayers to spend reserved money to offset budget increases. FY24 Article VIII asks: Shall the voters of the Champlain Valley School District authorize the Board of School Directors to allocate $600,000 of the school district's current fund balance as revenue for the 2023-2024 operating budget and assign the remaining balance as revenue for future budgets?

Article IX - The BUS QUESTION: This question asks taxpayers to approve the District’s need to borrow funds for bus purchases. The article gives the District authorization to borrow up to $395,000 to maintain our fleet. This year it is proposed that we purchase three new buses to replace older buses. (These older models are 12-15 years old and each has more than 170,000 miles on the odometer).

We hope this is helpful information for you.

- The Champlain Valley School District's Board of Directors

Please reach out to the CVSD School Board with any questions. cvsdschoolboard@cvsdvt.org or use the School Board or Budget Let’s Talk topics https://www.cvsdvt.org/page/268. On behalf of the CVSD School Board, we appreciate your generous support.

Please join the CVSD Annual Informational Meeting on Monday, March 6, 2023, at 5:00 at CVU.

More information:

Budget page www.cvsdvt.org/budget

CVSD Annual Report https://www.cvsdvt.org/Page/602

2023-2024 Budget Booklet https://bit.ly/FY24CVSDbudget

Budget FAQ’s https://bit.ly/CVSDBudgetFY23FAQs

See the Annual Warning on the budget page of our website for all of the ballot articles. We encourage all eligible residents in Champlain Valley School District towns to vote on March 7th or earlier.

Robotics in Action

We are thrilled to share the positive news about the expansion of robotics in CVSD. CVU's Robohawks have led the way on many levels. First, they garnered well-deserved attention for their own success as the Vermont Robotics Champions, which we wrote about last spring here. They traveled to Houston to compete in the FIRST Robotics World Championship. That was an amazing experience, where they connected with and learned from other robotics teams and represented CVSD well.

Also last spring, the Robohawks were awarded a grant to support robotics teams at our other schools. That grant provided materials for teams from each of our K-8 schools, enabling them to learn about, prepare, practice, and then participate in FIRST LEGO League (FLL) competitions. The Robohawks followed that up this year by visiting the K-8 teams and offered guidance, expertise, and enthusiastic support. 

Early this fall, teams were formed and coaches and volunteers were recruited. Funding for the coaches and some additional materials was provided by a number of district grants including a Rowland Foundation grant awarded to Tim O'Leary and Charlie MacFadyen and a CVSD Innovation grant. Tim O'Leary was especially instrumental in organizing and supporting the effort to get the FLL teams underway.

We are proud to say that every one of CVSD's K-8 schools had a team this year and they all participated in the Vermont FIRST LEGO League competition at the end of January. Some photos from that event and comments from coaches and students can be found below. 

From WCS Coach Allan Miller: 

It was great to see all 4 CVSD schools field successful teams this year and a huge thank you to Tim O’Leary and Charlie MacFadyen for sharing the Roland grant funds to help support the teams and Olaf Verdonk and the CVU Robohawks for their financial and technical support. This is probably the most successful full-district initiative I’ve seen in the past 10 years.

From SCS Coach Joey Adams: 

The SCS RoboCats finished up their first season with a resounding crescendo of teamwork and joy at the First Lego League Robotics State Championships at Norwich University on January 28th. The team was composed of over forty SCS students from grades 4th-7th who participated in the after-school sport from October to January. Their dedication to teamwork, building friendships, and having fun were on full display at the competition and throughout the season. The RoboCats worked hard on building robots to solve complex missions that involved learning and applying computer coding skills while working interdependently. The competition also included an intense judging panel that interviewed the RoboCats about their team roles, challenges, and what they learned as individuals and as a team. A quote from many RoboCats during the judging panel and feedback received about this new sport at SCS is best summed up: "...we worked so hard as a team and we learned so much but we also had so much fun while making new friends..." The RoboCats and the coaches can't wait for next season where we plan to roar with joy even louder together! 

From Tim Holcomb and CCS:

The kids worked really hard in completing several missions and getting their attachments to cooperate. With lots of innovation and creativity, they were proud of (and surprised) at how well they performed at the competition. As a team, we are looking forward to growing and continuing our program.

From HCS Student Jo Reiley:

On January 28, 2023, twenty-six teams gathered at Norwich University for the FIRST® LEGO® League (FLL) Statewide Championship. Among the teams was a group of ten HCS students from 4th through 8th grade gathered at Norwich to test their coding skills and teamwork. They raced against another team’s robot to complete a set of missions in the span of two and a half minutes. They had been preparing for this moment since October, starting out by just doing a couple of team building activities then slowly escalating into building complex Lego builds including wind turbines, as well as researching a chosen community problem to face for the Innovation Project.

FLL was originally founded by Dean Kamen in 1998. He worked with the owner of the LEGO group Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen to create a fun, STEM, teamwork emphasizing competition. Since then, teams from around the country have been working to code their robot and figure out what their Innovation Project is going to be about.

The team from HCS, or “Platinum Builders,” chose to do three different missions and got set on making those perfect. Their Innovation Project on the other hand was about turbines and their ability to collect energy. No one knew each other very well in the beginning but throughout the past couple of weeks, they have created quite a bond with each other. They hope that their team will grow next year and can’t wait to partake in the competition again.

- HCS coaches are Stephanie Bruning and Sunshine Ouimette

And finally, the Robohawks did it again and defended their title last weekend as Vermont state champions! Here's a description from coach Olaf Verdonk. 

CVU hosted the annual Vermont FIRST Tech Challenge Robotics Championship this past weekend. There were 19 robotics teams from all over Vermont and this is the second year that CVU has entered TWO teams into the tournament; the varsity squad RoboHawks (#5741) and the JV squad RoboRedhawks (#22683). You may recall that last year the RoboHawks qualified for the World Championship...well this year both teams were outstanding!
This year CVU will be sending not one team to the World Championship, but BOTH teams!

The JV team managed to outplay the varsity team and led the way to the afternoon playoff stages. The JV team created an alliance partnership with the varsity team and together this CVU alliance won the tournament! The best of three finals were SUPER exciting with the CVU alliance winning the last match by only 4 points! The tournament win gives the JV team a berth for the World Championship in Houston, TX. Not to be outdone by the JV team, the varsity RoboHawks team were selected as the prestigious Inspire Award champions as the best team and robot in the tournament which qualified them for the World Championship in Houston, TX in April.

The RoboHawks won several other awards due to their outstanding work in all aspects of the competition. They vastly outscored all teams in the judged presentation, design, and engineering portfolio events of the tournament.

This document outlines all their awards, as well as description of the semi-final and final knockout stage matches.

RoboHawks:
Crawford Phillips, Jared Kennedy, Sam Yager, Violet Fennern, Jack Gourlay, James Haines, Addison Hoopes, Joe Jacobs, Jaden Parker

RoboRedhawks:
Clay Nicholson, Braden Griffin, Will Akerly, Gavin Blackburn, Jacob Graham, with support from Rhett Gardner and Sean Maynard

Congratulations and well done to all students, coaches, and volunteers! 

 

CVSD Update, February 2023

 

Dear CVSD Families and Caregivers,

There's so much that happens in the course of a month! Please see our latest newsletter for updates and news about important work and how you can get involved in support of our students and our schools.

• Proposed budget information
• Strategic planning update
• DEI committee news
• Spring standardized testing
• Learn about the Seal of Biliteracy

and much more!

As always, let us know if you have questions, feedback, or compliments using our Let's Talk page on the district's website.

Get Informed About the Proposed FY24 Budget

Dear Champlain Valley School District Community Members and Voters,

CVSD’s Board of Directors is reaching out to you with information about the proposed FY24 budget. We hope that you’ll take the time to read this message and will access additional materials to get informed before voting. This is the first in a series of posts about the proposed budget and articles voters will see on the ballot.

Voters can cast early ballots or for those who prefer to vote in person, Tuesday, March 7, 2023, is your chance to vote on the 2023-2024 proposed CVSD Budget and school-related Articles.

As an informed voter, it is important to understand the significance of the proposed budget for the Champlain Valley School District. This year, the district has proposed a budget of $96,119,804, which represents an increase of 7.5% from the current year.

Despite these increased costs, the CVSD proposed budget is still 1.2% below the statewide average for equalized pupils and 1% below the state average spending increase. This demonstrates the district's commitment to being financially responsible while still providing the best possible education for its students.

The budget proposal takes into account various external forces, such as statewide and national healthcare increases, inflation, and a tight labor market. Despite these challenges, the Champlain Valley School District remains dedicated to supporting all students and providing a high-quality education.

By voting for the proposed budget, you are supporting the education of the students in the Champlain Valley School District. Investing in our future through education is a vital part of ensuring a strong and thriving community.

Please reach out to the CVSD School Board with any questions. cvsdschoolboard@cvsdvt.org or use the School Board or Budget Let’s Talk topics https://www.cvsdvt.org/page/268. On behalf of the CVSD School Board, we appreciate your generous support.

Kind regards,

The CVSD Board of Directors



Please join the CVSD Annual Informational Meeting on Monday, March 6, 2023, at 5:00 at CVU.


More information:

Budget page www.cvsdvt.org/budget

CVSD Annual Report https://www.cvsdvt.org/Page/602

2023-2024 Budget Booklet https://bit.ly/FY24CVSDbudget

Budget FAQ’s https://bit.ly/CVSDBudgetFY23FAQs


See the Annual Warning on the budget page of our website for all of the ballot articles. We encourage all eligible residents in Champlain Valley School District towns to vote on March 7th or earlier.