Celebrating CVSD Leaders

We are excited to honor and recognize seven Champlain Valley School District educators who completed the Snelling Center for Government's Vermont School Leadership Project (VSLP) this past weekend. CVSD has a long history of encouraging leaders to participate in this 17-month professional development experience and the district and its schools has benefited as a result of engagement in this program.

The 2022 cohort includes 22 Vermont educators, seven of whom are leaders in CVSD.

Clockwise in the above image, from the top left:

• Courtney Krahn, assistant principal, Charlotte Central School
• Jensa Bushey, CVSD district literacy leader
• Angela Filion, principal, Allen Brook School
• Sarah Crum, CVSD director of learning and innovation
• Caitlin Bianchi, math coordinator, Williston Schools
• Arthur Chiaravalli, Fairbanks house director, Champlain Valley Union High School
• Jennifer Roth, principal, Charlotte Central School

Our district is fortunate to have motivated leaders who strive to learn, enhance their skills, and challenge themselves in order to best support our students.

Thank you and congratulations!

Welcome Back CVSD Faculty

Today marked the official first day back for our faculty across CVSD. For the first time in three years, we gathered together at CVU for Convocation and professional development. With nearly 500 faculty members in CVU's auditorium and library (livestreamed), we started the day with speeches and a fabulous keynote. 

First, CVU's student co-presidents Asa and Kyle spoke to the whole group about their experiences in CVSD schools, with shout-outs to the many educators that had a direct impact on them. They reminded us that they have yet to experience a high school year not impacted by COVID-19 and are excited to embark on this final year of learning and connecting. 

Angela Arsenault, our School Board chair, shared an inspirational welcome message. She acknowledged the challenges we've all faced through the pandemic. She led us through an exercise to envision our dream school and district that is supportive and inclusive for all children. 

Superintendent Rene Sanchez told of the work that the district's leadership team engaged in this summer, helping to develop a focus for the year. With teaching and learning at the center of our work, we will emphasize growth and belonging for all. Incorporated into that are the more specific topics of identity, direction, connection, and proficiency. We'll be sharing more information about how we will define and incorporate those terms into our work with students and one another soon. 

Rene also recognized faculty and staff who had been in the field of education for longer than 30 years, culminating with CVU teacher, Norm McClure, who is starting his 50th year! (Yes, you read that number right!)

Our keynote today was Joelle van Lent, a licensed psychologist who focuses on resiliency. Her presentation was authentic, inspiring, and engaging. There are many things that resonated with everyone, especially after the last few years. She provided ideas and suggestions for how we can support our students and each other. 

After a short break, we shifted the focus to those four areas of identity, direction, connection, and proficiency. Everyone was offered the choice of reading an article, listening to a podcast, or watching a video (there were multiple options for each under each topic). Then we gathered in rooms by topic and discussed our experiences and ideas. 

Our final activities were community circles of about 10 in each group. There were 50 groups spread out in rooms around CVU. We responded to questions about identity, direction, connection, and proficiency. And then each group created a collaborative quilt square with some plans and intentions for the year. These squares were collected and displayed together for all to see and appreciate. It's an impressive collection of creative and thoughtful expression and ideas. Zoom in if you can!

It was a great welcome to a new school year with a positive tone, engaging speakers and activities, and inspiration for a fabulous school year. Thank you to everyone who helped plan, coordinate, and facilitate the day. We're excited to welcome students back next week! 

Communicating with All

Last week a group of CVSD special educators and speech and learning pathologists (SLPs) from CVSD met to continue their learning with the University of Vermont's Inclusion Team. The focus is on augmented communication tools for preschool and kindergarten students who are learning to communicate. 

This all-day session was the second of three that are taking place over the course of this school year.

Empowered Learning for All

CVSD was well represented earlier this week at the Dynamic Landscapes conference in Burlington. This annual conference is co-sponsored by Vita-Learn and the Vermont School Library Association. In addition to educators interested in educational technology and library-media, many teachers and administrators attend and present at this conference. But one of the best elements is that students are welcome as presenters as well. 

The theme of this year's conference was Empowered Learning for All and CVSD certainly had a lot to share on that topic. Looking through the program, we see about 19 CVSD educators that presented at this conference! Their roles in our schools include digital learning leaders, librarians, classroom teachers, and essential arts educators. At least four of the sessions included students from either Shelburne, Charlotte, Williston, or CVU. 

Over the two days we heard student voices, we learned, we shared, and we reflected. We want to recognize and celebrate the many CVSD educators and students who represented our district so well. 

Peter Langella     Leah Joly     Christina Deeley       

Jeff Tobrocke     Olaf Verdonk     Corinna Hussey     Tasha Grey     Allan Miller

Anne Pius     Jessica Wilson     Marley Evans     Sam Nelson     Sharon Davison

Shannon Baird     Maggie O'Toole     Ellen Arapakos     

Aron Merrill      Charlie Macfadyen      Gary Lambert 

SCS students learn a little while on the Champlain College campus.

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

Congratulations to CVSD Education Leaders

This past weekend marked the end of a journey for five education leaders in the Champlain Valley School District. For the past 17 months, they have engaged in learning with other Vermont educators in the Snelling Center for Government's Vermont School Leadership Project.

From their website: "Effective public school leadership requires more than professional knowledge. It demands passion, the ability to articulate a vision and engage others in that vision, and the ability to facilitate organizational change To strengthen these capabilities among Vermont educators, the Snelling Center developed the Vermont School Leadership Project (VSLP) in collaboration with prominent members of Vermont's business and education communities. VSLP was launched in 1995 and has graduated thirteen classes, creating a collegial leadership network of over 250 alumni."

Many other educators in CVSD have already participated in the Snelling VSLP. In addition, some of our early childhood educators have participated in the Snelling Center's Early Childhood Leadership Institute. And at least one of our School Board members has been a participant in the Snelling Center's Vermont Leadership Institute. We are fortunate in our district to have motivated leaders who strive to learn, enhance their skills, and challenge themselves in order to best support our students.

The 2018 cohort included 25 Vermont educators, five of whom are leaders in CVSD. We congratulate John Pontius, Suzan Locke, Meagan Roy, Anna Couperthwait, and Bonnie Birdsall on this achievement.