CVU Celebrations

Dear CVU Community: Every so often a student sends me an email that makes me chuckle, so here is my favorite lighthearted inbox moment of the week. I wish everyone a snowy and fun weekend! Below are self portraits from the Fall Drawing I class. Can you identify the students?

Saturday, February 4: One more week until the CVU Penguin Plunge!

Join team CVU

https://give.specialolympicsvermont.org/team/453760

Cool Schools Penguin Plunge Waiver (Under 18) – https://www.jotform.com/sign/223174838458062/invite/01ghvmqw2pc3405cd72b8c6457

Cool Schools Penguin Plunge Waiver (Over 18) – https://www.jotform.com/sign/223183836975064/invite/01ghxttf2v6d0eb4ba173bca68

Wednesday, February 8: Join us for Eighth Grade Family Night. Read more, here.

From Dan Lyons: Community Skills Transition Intensive class visited and learned about the kids up on Diantha Francis' farm in Hinesburg. Hearts melted, pants got dirty, and boy, does Diantha have her hands full. Thanks for sharing, Diantha! And, below, Life received some baby goat therapy on a snowy Thursday.

The following CVU students recently received recognition through the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards program. These students were recognized as state winners at either the Gold Key, Silver Key or Honorable Mention level in the specified arts categories. Students were able to submit multiple pieces for consideration and each of these students won several awards. They will have their works on display at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center from Feb 18 - Mar 4 culminating with an awards ceremony on March 4th. The Gold Key winners for Vermont will also be forwarded for national recognition consideration:

The passion, hard work, and support from the RoboHawks helped to inspire every CVSD school to send a team to the Vermont FIRST Lego League Robotics Competition. Head to Norwich University to see the action!

Laurel Billingsley's R1 yearlong physics class calculated the coefficients of friction between sleds and the snow. A perfect week for the project!

Monsieur McLure’s French 2 class recently finished a study of Holiday traditions in the French speaking world. In these photos, students enjoy La Galette de Rois by Kingston Cherry and we see Keirsha McGuire Lane who was crowned a royal for the day by finding the trinket in the cake!

I forgot to mention how much fun the Unified Hoop game was for the entire school in C3 last week. Our students were amazing!

Cancer Awareness Club's spike ball tournament raised $240 for the Cancer Patient Support Foundation.

Kate Boget has a pretty cool internship with several Athletic/Activities Directors this spring. Students, there are all kinds of internship opportunities out there. Consider pursuing one for school credit!

Check out this week's Library Newsletter.

Scholars Bowl held their annual home meet on Friday, January 6. Twenty teams from 9 schools came to play and our teams did very well. Our varsity A team finished 5-0 to tie for the best overall record at the tournament. We now have a 22-5 record on the season and are on an 11 game winning streak. Our B team (18-9 ) went 3-2--losing twice by narrow margins. In the JV B bracket, our C team finished first with a 4-1 record while our D team was 3-2, with one of its losses coming to our C's. Nineteen students played in the matches on 1/6, including several playing in their first competition. These included: Skylar Francis, Kai Jenkins Mui, Keegan Jewell, Sam Kunin, Ava Rohrbaugh, Keaton St. Martin, Sam Yager (12th grade) Brendan Fellows, Elias Leventhal, Colin Ravlin, Daniel Steinman, Chandler Turner (11th grade) Zoe Jenkins Mui, Jacob Graham, Leo Elder, Dylan Elder (10th grade) Leah Rauch, Charles Redmond, Grace Warrington (9th grade). In addition we were joined by four of our Alumni Legends who returned to read questions- Brandon Tieso, Peter Antinozzi, Bay Foley-Cox, and Evan MacMahan

From Fairbanks Core: We were happy to spread some love around the school today! This smiling group of Fairbankers happily delivered an early Valentine to our hard-working Cafe staff.

On Monday, Geof Hewitt visited Lizzy Fox Lausier and Kari Hoose's Humanities 10 classes, AP English Literature, and the Poetry Out Loud Club. The author of four books of poetry, Hewitt works with Poetry Out Loud to coach students on creative writing and poetry recitation. CVU will host its annual Poetry Out Loud recitation competition on Tuesday, February 21 during Block 3. All students are welcome to compete! If you're interested in participating or want to learn more, email Lizzy at efoxlausier@cvsdvt.org or sign up for Poetry Out Loud Club, Mondays during C3.

From Heather Morely: Field & Forest is back this semester! Here, Dave Trevithick reads an excerpt from Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac. Students then explore the bias associated with forest management and conservation.

As you all are aware, CVSD recently completed a district Equity Audit in the fall of 2022. One of the first recommendations from the audit is for CVSD to create a shared vision/ understanding for Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) work at CVSD. In order to create this shared understanding, district DEI coaches have gathered input from faculty and staff at each school. This input, along with the equity audit results, will be used by the DEI team to create a draft document of a shared vision for DEI work in our district. The shared vision draft will explain the focus of CVSD DEI work and provide collective definitions. We would like to form a district wide community committee to give us additional input and feedback on the shared vision draft. We hope to have 17-20 members on this committee, including teachers, students, parents, community members, support staff, and administrators. We are planning on forming the committee by the end of January, sharing the draft document with the committee by February 1 and then holding a 2 hour, hybrid meeting in mid February for committee members to share feedback. We will try to provide childcare during this meeting. If you are interested in participating on the committee, please contact CVU DEI coaches Christina Deeley (cdeeley@cvsdvt.org) or Bageshree Blasius (bblasius@cvsdvt.org.)."

New Spring Course Offerings From Access CVU: Wow! Don't miss the new offerings from Access CVU. Access CVU is pleased to announce the Winter/Spring 2023 Catalog is now open for registration! With over 170 classes and 80 instructors, there is something of interest for everyone and all ages. There are 63 in February alone! Get information about the courses, how to sign up, and more on this CVSD Story blog post.

CVSD Strategic Planning - We Welcome Your Input!

The CVSD Strategic Planning committee has drafted some elements of the plan and is seeking input from all community members. That includes parents/caregivers, those without children in our schools, faculty/staff, and students.

Please view this set of slides, which were shared at last week's virtual Town Hall, and then use this form to share your thoughts. These links are also available on the Strategic Planning page of the district's website. Please contribute your input by February 15. Thank you!