SCS Weekly Newsletter 9/15/24

Dear Salisbury Community School families,

Another good few weeks at Salisbury Community School! We are officially back in the swing of things, and students and staff have all gotten into a rhythm. It's been really nice!

I'm going to keep this message short, because there's a good amount in this newsletter, but I do want to ask folks for a couple of big favors around attendance and picking up students.

1: If a student is going to be out, it is essential that you call us or email to let us know your student will be out, and why. It helps us both with our state-mandated paperwork and with our ability to support students. If you do not reach out to us, we will reach out to you, but that can often be a time-consuming process for Donna.

2: If a student is going on a trip and missing school for more than three days, you must reach out to ACSD Superintendent Wendy Baker (wbaker@acsdvt.org) for approval. This expectation is the same across the district.

3: If students' after-school plans are changing, you must call or email Donna in the front office (dsimpson@acsdvt.org or 802-352-4291). We cannot take the word of students on this, as they can often get confused (they are quite young, after all). Please contact us by 1:30 PM- it gives us time to notify everyone who needs to know.

Thanks for reading those expectations, and making them part of what we do. Hopefully they are small asks, but they are ones that make a big difference in terms of our keep students organized, safe, and heading the correct place at the end of the day!

Best,

Bjarki

• From the Principal's Desk
• Important Dates Coming Up.
• SCS Events:
• Open House
• All School Meeting
• News at SCS:
• School Savings
• SCS Partnering with Salisbury Family Center
• Panorama Screener Information
• 802 Smiles Returns!
• Time-lapse Picture Project
• ACSD News
• Lunch Menu
• School year calendar.
  

Wednesday, October 2nd: Fall Foliage Fun on the "Secret Soccer Field" 1:00-2:30.

Thanks to everyone who came to Open House last Thursday night! We moved it up a week this year to get it in before most fall sports started, and that seemed to work- we had the families of over 50 of our students come! We also served 4 gallons of ice cream! (Thank goodness for back-up popsicles too!). Parents, family and friends at Open House got to visit classrooms to see what students have been working on, meet the students' teachers, and spend some time catching up!

This Thursday, we held our first "All-School Meeting"! Students began by learning the Vermont State Song, "These Green Mountains", and singing it together. We then split into mixed aged groups, each with 5th and 4th grade leaders and a faculty member, to work together to identify and write down "what makes a school happy". To help prompt their thinking, we asked "What does a happy school LOOK like? What does a happy school SOUND like? What does a happy school FEEL like?". We got great responses. In future meetings (which will be about once a month) we will continue to think as a school community about agreements and understandings we can have that can make our school as happy (and safe and welcoming) as can be.

School House Savings is starting back up! Our weekly Banking Day will be on Tuesday mornings during arrival, in the gym. Whether students are depositing a few cents or emptying their piggy banks, this is a great opportunity for them to increase financial literacy and learn about savings.

Now is the time to sign up if your student has not participated in School House Savings in the past. See attached flyer for details. It’s simple!

Students can open their account with the pamphlet that came home in Friday Folders or with this link:

https://nbmvt.com/personal/savings-certificates/school-house-savings/

This year, we are VERY excited to announce that we are working with the Salisbury Family Center (a childcare center located in Salisbury Village) to bring afterschool care to SCS. Salisbury Family Center is owned and directed by Christian Bowdish, a Salisbury resident, and they will be operating an after-school care in our gym! Any interested families should reach out to Christian at sfc.afterschoolprogram@gmail.com or call her at 802-352-9800.

We know that social emotional learning (SEL) is crucial for our students’ success in school and in life, so across ACSD we are working on systems to support strong SEL teaching and learning in our schools. As part of that work, we are using Panorama surveys, research-backed SEL measurement tools. We will use the data we collect with this assessment to reflect on student learning and strengthen our programs and instruction to help all students succeed.

ACSD students have been taking this survey for 2 years now and we are actively using the data at the school and district level. At Salisbury Community School, it helps us to know both how students are doing as well as respond with whole class, grade, and individual supports as needed.

This survey will be given to students in grades 3-5 will take the survey again between this week and 10/9. The survey asks student to self-reflect on skills related to self-management, self-awareness, responsible decision-making, relationship skills, and social awareness. We ask that all students participate, because their feedback provides valuable insights to help us improve and adapt. K-2 students do not participate directly in the survey. Instead, K-2 teachers complete an SEL Teacher Perception checklist for each student.

Please notify your child’s teacher as well as Principal Bjarki Sears (bsears@acsdvt.org) if you wish to opt your child out of taking the survey. Thank you in advance for supporting this important work. If you have any questions please reach out to Bjarki as well.

The district is partnering with 802 Smiles again this year to offer dental cleanings and screenings at school. Please see the attached forms if you are interested. Only paper enrollment is available this year and forms should be returned to the school nurse. We will also be sending home paper forms next week, but we wanted to give folks the option of printing them out and handing them in earlier if they would like to do that. The enrollment deadline is October 1st. Dental care visits will happen the 2nd and 3rd weeks of October.

This year, we thought it would be fun to chronicle the changes of the season at Salisbury Community School by taking the same picture, at the same time, from the same spot, every week. At the end of the year it will hopefully be a fun thing to look at and share! Check out the first three weeks below! (Spoiler alert- not much change yet, but there will be!). Note the difference in where the shadows stretch already! The sun is that much lower after only a couple of weeks!

Due to growing instances of phishing scams and concern for potential hacks of our computer networks, we will be removing all staff email addresses from our website directory. This change comes at the direction of our Technology Dept and we join many K-12 schools, colleges, and businesses in making this change. Staff phone numbers will still be available in our staff directory. You may also request a teacher’s email by phone or by calling Salisbury Community School's front office at 802-352-4291. Thank you for your understanding as we balance family communication needs with tech privacy and safety.

In addition to our phone/email communication, ACSD has a text messaging system. Families must opt-in to receive texts. ACSD will only use text messaging for short, time-sensitive messages (like early dismissal and snow days). We will test this service on Thursday Sept 19th after the school day. To receive texts, you must opt-in:

• Text “yes” to 67587. You will get a reply confirming your registration. If you ever want to stop receiving texts, just text STOP.

• Make sure we have your wireless number in our student database. This is the number you share on school forms. (If you currently receive school/ACSD calls on your cell phone, we probably have your number.) Please contact your front office if we do not have this number.