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Superintendent's Message
Violet Nichols
August 17, 2023
Dear Parents/Guardians and Staff,
It’s less than two weeks until the first day of the 2023-2024 school year! As you enjoy the last few weeks of summer vacation, know that we are preparing everything for students and staff to come back to school. Repairs on the roofs are wrapping up while ZEMs construction continues. New staff orientation and inservice begins next week, kicking off on the 21st. Elementary schools are holding kindergarten playdates and open houses (more details about those in Notable Items) and as of today, schedules are available in PowerSchool for SBHS students (FHTMS student schedules will be available on Monday the 21st.) We are also looking forward to seeing 6th graders, 9th graders, and new high school students on August 29th and all students on August 30th!
School Board Reorganization
At last night's board meeting, School Board Chair Alex McHenry announced to the community that he was stepping down from his role as School Board Chair citing a desire to dedicate more time to his family, career, and personal ventures. He nominated fellow Board member Kate Bailey for the School Board Chair role. The Board unanimously voted Kate into the position of School Board Chair. Chelsea Tillinghast will remain Clerk of the Board. McHenry read a statement on behalf of the Board: “The board, collectively, would like to take a moment to address the reorganization conversations that have occurred over the past month. First of all, we’d like to thank the people that have reached out and acknowledge the concerns community members have expressed. Working together as a team is paramount to supporting our students, educators, and the Superintendent. As we regroup and move forward into the new school year, know that we remain dedicated to serving our school community. We are committed to continued professional development and policy governance training. The initial public conversations were had in an effort to increase transparency and we apologize for allowing those conversations to take on an emotional tenor. In the future, we will strive to have personal conversations in Executive Sessions and maintain clear communication in open sessions. We seek to establish trust, accountability, and community partnership. We also know and expect that you will hold us accountable. Thank you.”
I have a deep respect for the work that Alex has done on the board and for our students, staff, and community and I have valued working with him. I know that Kate is excited to take on this role and to work alongside the other members of the board using training and board reflection to rebuild trust and accountability. I look forward to collaborating with both Alex in his continuing role as a school board member and with Kate in her new role.
Ice Cream Social
Power School
Please remember to update all of your contact information in Power School so you can be informed of school closures and other updates from your student's school as well as the district and make sure you are subscribed for transportation information (more on that below). There are also items that you can opt in or out of, so please go here to make any changes.
Free & Reduced-Price Meals and Universal Free Meals
During the school year 2023-2024, all students are entitled to receive one free reimbursable breakfast and one free reimbursable lunch at school as outlined by the USDA regulations. Snacks and a la carte items (including milk to accompany a meal brought from home ) are NOT included in this program, the student must have funds in their account to purchase these items.
WE NEED YOUR HELP! We are asking families to PLEASE fill out and return the 2023-24 Free & Reduced-Price Meal Application if your household income falls within or comes close to the income guidelines listed on the application. Even though there is no charge for reimbursable school meals, many other important programs that benefit our students and community are funded based on our districts free & reduced-price meal eligibility percentage. Filling out this form also helps everyone in our community. It may also qualify your family for low-cost internet through the Affordable Connectivity Program. Completed applications may be returned to your student's school or may be mailed to Nutritional Services, 500 Dorset Street, South Burlington, VT, 05403.
Facilities Update
After several weather imposed delays, (did you know that trucks cannot transport ZEMs on Vermont roads in the rain?!) the huge cranes were finally able to do their work and the ZEMs at both Rick Marcotte and Orchard are all in place! Siding has been installed at Rick Marcotte along with plumbing and electrical and they continue to work on the connector hallway. Drywall and roof work continues. At Orchard, those items are underway as well. Principals McDonald and Trifillio are developing plans for student spaces for the start of the school year in collaboration with their school-based teams. They will be providing updates directly to staff and families.
As construction is planned to continue during the first month of school, DEW Construction has created safety plans for the construction site to both ease pick up and drop off times, as well as assure egress in an emergency. Rest assured that these plans will be in place before students come back to school. Safety plans will be reviewed with teachers and staff during inservice next week and SBFD Fire Marshall Terry Francis will review the plans once they are set. I am grateful to DEW for their attention to safety as well as to Principal McDonald and Principal Trifilio and the staff at Rick Marcotte and Orchard for familiarizing themselves with these temporary plans and bearing with the construction throughout September. We are currently looking at early October for the ZEMs to be up and running.
I want to provide additional information from my last newsletter regarding PCBs that were previously detected at the high school. In 2016, window replacement at the high school took place first and then testing occurred. The results exponentially increased the cost of the project and then COVID hit and caused delays. In 2018, those same delays impacted the replacement of windows at Chamberlin as well. As we work to make replacements District-wide, we will keep you updated.
Transportation
We are looking forward to introducing some new enhancements to our services and ensuring that we improve the communications you receive when things don’t go exactly to plan. The first is the introduction of new mobile software that will provide you with a free app for viewing and sharing your students’ transportation route and providing real-time GPS status of where their bus is, along with user-initiated alerts to let you know when the bus is within a certain distance of your students’ bus stop. We’ll be sending more detailed instructions soon but you can familiarize yourself with the product’s features and functionality by clicking here. We are intending to trial this new software with the bus routes for Chamberlin School and the Georgia run before rolling it out more broadly to all our bus routes early in the school year.
We are still in the process of finalizing the 2023-2024 bus routes as we continue to gather more student enrollment information. It is important to note that if you have not formally subscribed to transportation services in the PowerSchool Registration process, we will not know your students are intending to ride a bus and therefore will not provide you with a bus assignment, may not have seating capacity on your neighborhood’s bus, nor will we be able to send communications to advise parents/guardians of route changes, etc. So please subscribe via PowerSchool if you have not done so already!
We appreciate that we all experienced challenges last year due to nationwide bus driver shortages, which unfortunately will impact us again this year due to staff retirements and may once again result in combining routes or needing to impose scheduled route cancellations. However, we do have new applicants who are working their way through the required Commercial Driver License qualification process and whom we hope to have in a driver’s seat soon.
If you have any questions about your transportation needs, please contact the Transportation Manager Kathy Larock (klarock@sbschools.net; (802)-318-0435) or Transportation Coordinator Sean McKenzie (smckenzie@sbschools.net; (802) 343-9555).
School Safety
The district crisis team met on August 7th and discussed the implementation of Behavior Threat Assessment teams as part of the new requirements from the Vermont Agency of Education. In addition, Brad Messier, the district’s Operations Specialist will be working in conjunction with building administrators and the South Burlington Police Department to conduct full building audits of all 5 schools and Central Office to assure that all proper procedures and protocols are in place. These plans will continue to develop and adapt as Brad evaluates all the data he gathers. In addition, we intend to include school safety as a line item in this years budget in order to prioritize any necessary upgrades or improvements in our schools.
As keeping students and staff safe is our number one priority, at last night’s school board meeting, the Board reviewed Policy 2.1, Treatment of Students. Along with Brad, Tim Jarvis, Executive Director of Operations, South Burlington Police Chief Shawn Burke provided information that demonstrates the District’s compliance with that policy.
The Vermont School Safety Center has updated their website with Back to School Resources. You can also find more information on our website sbschools.net/safety.
The City has conducted traffic studies to learn more about traffic patterns around our schools and in our community. With the results now available, on August 21st, the City Council will discuss possible modifications to increase traffic safety around schools, Rick Marcotte Central School in particular. This agenda item is a follow-up from our July 10th Steering Committee Meeting (School Board and City Council Meeting) where pedestrian and traffic safety was discussed. I would like to thank the City Council members, our City Manager, and the Director of Public Works for all of the efforts that they have made to partner to support school safety. The agenda has not been posted, but information will be available here.
Donuts and Discussion
Alternative Program
Recently, we were informed that NFI, Howard Center, and Matrix were dissolving their business partnership which owns Centerpoint School. This unexpected change has impacted some of our students in middle and high school who have attended Centerpoint School. This is the most recent of many alternative program closures in our region and State, leaving huge gaps for many students. I view this as an issue of equity, access and inclusion. It is our responsibility to provide a Free and Public Education to all South Burlington Students (FAPE).
We are excited to share the incredible progress that we made to open our own therapeutic alternative program this fall. We have secured a space at 1025 Airport Drive, the former Centerpoint Space, and are looking forward to welcoming students back this fall! This integrated, therapeutic program will provide additional pathway options to our students. All families impacted by this change will be notified by their child’s team with updates. Additionally, there are spaces available to students in other districts. We recognize that we are not in this alone and that our neighboring students need alternative programming also.
SB Mentoring
South Burlington School District’s School-Based Mentoring program is MAKING NEW MATCHES this to begin in October 2023! Come spend an hour a week playing board games, foosball or ping pong; enjoy making crafts or building Legos, playing cards or just connecting over lunch with a student!
We are looking for compassionate, responsible adults to mentor K-12 students, by spending one hour per week together for friendship and fun while exploring activities and interests together, one-to-one. Sound like something you’d like to be a part of?
Join the wonderful community of SB Mentors by filling out an application today! For additional information about the program, please take a look at their homepage.
Make a difference in a student’s life while enriching your own!
Years of Service Awards
If you’ll recall, in the spring, I sent a survey asking what staff would prefer for their Years of Service Awards. We have done more research on three companies and they offer services that are geared toward larger companies with higher overhead and we ultimately found that these platforms will not work for a public school district.
I am sorry we are not able to act on this in time for this year’s convocation. However, we will continue to look into alternate options to provide staff with more choice in the future.
Employment Opportunities
The district is hiring! Please follow the links to read the full descriptions for these roles.
Special Ed teachers: Rick Marcotte Central School
Frederick H. Tuttle Middle School
Interventionists (all locations)
Lunchroom:
Training available to eligible candidates
Full job descriptions are available on School Spring. If you have questions on hiring processes or on employment, please contact Elissa Galvez, Employment Specialist, egalvez@sbschools.net (802) 652-7247.
Notable Items
Registration for fall sports at FHTMS is OPEN!
Click here to go to the registration page for more information. Specific team information can also be found on the athletics website: www.sbwolves.com
FHTMS will offer the following fall sports:
Cross Country: Grades 6, 7 & 8
Field Hockey: Grades 6, 7 & 8
Boys Soccer: Grades 6, 7 & 8
Girls Soccer: Grades 6, 7 & 8
Middle School Sports Practices are projected to begin on 8/30/23.
Fall Coaches Needed!
FHTMS is looking to fill the following fall sports coaching positions. For additional information or if you are interested in one of the positions, please contact Glen Button, FHTMS Activities Coordinator (gbutton@sbschools.net) or call (802) 652-7171.
Field Hockey
'A' Team Head Coach
Soccer
6th Grade Boys Head Coach
*If we are unable to fill these positions, it may result in a delay of the season for these teams.*
Notable Dates
August 17: SBHS Student schedules available online via PowerSchool
August 21: FHTMS Student schedules available online via PowerSchool
August 21-22: Optional Open Building Sessions at FHTMS (students and family can visit school, obtain physical paper schedules, practice opening locker, and follow schedule around the building)
August 22: Superintendent Ice Cream Social at FHTMS 4:30-5:30 pm
August 23: Convocation/Inservice for Teachers/Paraprofessionals
August 24-25: Inservice for Teachers
August 24: Kindergarten Informational Night at Orchard at 6:00 pm
August 26: Kindergarten Playdate: 2-3:30 pm at Gertrude Chamberlin
August 27: Kindergarten Playdate: 10:30-Noon at Rick Marcotte
August 28: Inservice for Teachers/Paraprofessionals
August 29: First day of school for 6th, 9th, and all new HS students
Open House for Elementary Schools
Orchard: 8:30-9:30 am
RMCS Kindergarten: 11:30-12:45 pm
RMCS Grades 1-5: 1:30-3 pm
GCS: 1:30-3 pm
August 30: First Day of Classes for All Students
September 4: Labor Day, no schoolThank you for reading! I’ll be back with my regular weekly newsletter on August 31st.
Violet
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