EMES School Newsletter

After many days of wet, dreary weather, the sun has finally graced us with its presence today. I hope you've all been able to get outside, and are enjoying this holiday with your children. It was wonderful to see so many of you at our K-4 Music/Chorus concert last Thursday evening. We had a FULL house and your children all did a fantastic job performing in front of such a large audience. It always amazes me how much they learn over the course of the year, whether it's playing an instrument or vocally.

We are heading into the final weeks of school and as you can see from the calendar below, we have A LOT going on! We're excited about our annual spring wellness day at Wrightsville this Friday, rain or shine (let's hope for shine!). If you haven't sent the permission slip back in yet, please do so asap! We will be selecting group activities in the coming days. As a reminder, K-3 will be there in the morning through lunch and 4-6 will be there from lunch through the afternoon. If you've signed up to chaperone this trip, you'll hear from Blanch in the coming days.

You'll notice a sign up form for our annual BBQ for the Celebration of Learning on June 11th below. Please fill this out if your family would like to participate in the BBQ dinner. Annie and Jen will prepare the burgers and hotdogs, and we're asking families to bring a side, salad, drinks, or dessert to add to the spread.

The data from our climate survey was shared with me last Friday afternoon. I've spent the weekend digesting it and will share this out with staff in the coming weeks. Students, families, and staff all filled it out and we got a lot of great feedback on our climate. Thank you to all the families who filled it out for us this year. I read through each and every comment and take them all to heart. We have a lot to celebrate, and there are things we need to work on. If you wrote specific comments that you think will be helpful to have a conversation with me about, I'd like to extend a personal invite for you to give me a call, write me an email, or stop by to talk. Sometimes it's hard to get written comments without fully understanding them, and I'd love to know how I (and our staff) can do more to improve the climate of our building. The culture and climate of our school is something I take very seriously and if there are things I/we can do to make it better, I'd love to hear from you!

I'd like to end by sharing some hiring updates with you all. We are looking forward to welcoming three new faces to EMES, and are sad to see some old faces go. Music teacher, Jackie Hunt, will be moving on to Barstow Elementary School in Chittenden in the fall; Ms. Arlyn will be moving on to C.P. Smith Elementary School in Burlington; Amadeus Dorfman (Mr. D) will be moving from EMES to Berlin Elementary, and 2/3 teacher, Ainsley Burroughs, will be moving from EMES to Calais Elementary. We are truly going to miss each of them and wish them all the best in their new endeavors!

We look forward to welcoming Amber Larrabee, U-32 school nurse, to the EMES nurse position in the fall (bio below). We're also excited to welcome Librarian Rory Woodard (bio below), and Music Teacher Kenna Lund (bio coming soon!). Because our numbers are smaller next year than they are this year, we will not be replacing Mr. D or Ms. Burroughs - and we are happy they found new places to call home in our district!

I hope you're ready for these last few (very busy!) weeks of school and I look forward to seeing you at some of the many events we have coming up!

Best,
Alicia

May 29: Grade 1 field trip to U-32 for book buddies

May 29: Grade 4 field trip to State House

May 30: School-wide Spring Wellness Day at Wrightsville

June 3: Grades 2/3 field trip to VINS

June 5: District Music Concert - Grades 4-6 band/chorus at U-32

June 10: Grade 6 Move Up Day at U-32

June 10: K-1 field trip to VINS

June 11: Celebration of Learning and family BBQ 5:00 - 6:30

June 12: Talent Show 6 pm

June 13: Grades 5/6 field trip to Boulder Beach

June 16: K-1 field trip to Boulder Beach

June 17: Grade 4 field trip to Montshire Museum

June 18: 6th Grade Graduation - 6pm

June 19: Juneteenth - no school

June 20: Grades 2/3 field trip to Boulder Beach

June 23: Field Day

June 24: Last day of school -12:30 dismissal

July 3: Report cards mailed home with 2025-2026 class placement

Hey, my name is Amber Larrabee, and I’m thrilled to be stepping into the role of school nurse at EMES next school year. For the past four years, I’ve had the privilege of serving many of your family members as a school nurse at U-32, and for the past year I have been deep into completion of my master’s degree in Public Health with a focus on School Nursing. I will be finished by the start of the new school year!

Born and raised in Central Vermont, I already know many of the wonderful students and families in this sweet school community, and I’m truly excited to deepen those connections. One of the most meaningful parts of my work is welcoming children into the health office for comfort, care, and support, and partnering with families and faculty to help keep our school healthy and thriving.

This new chapter brings not only a fresh professional opportunity but also a bit more time to enjoy with my own family, and I’m very grateful for both. I’m looking forward to getting to know you and working together to support the well-being of every student and faculty.

My name is Rory Woodard (Ms. Rory at school) and I am beyond thrilled to be joining the East Montpelier and Calais Elementary schools as the school librarian next year! As a life-long book lover, sharing the joy of reading and learning with young people is one of the most delightful experiences in the world. (Although I'll never have an answer to what my favorite book is - there are too many that have been perfect in the time and place that I read them!) I grew up in Calais and attended Calais, Rumney, and U-32 myself, and now live in Calais again! I'm a second generation school librarian (my mom, Mrs. Woodard, was the librarian at Rumney and Doty for many years), and I've spent the last three school years as the PreK-12 librarian at Cabot School. When I'm not being a librarian, I love reading, knitting, swimming, fishing, making jam, and playing both tabletop and video games. I can't wait to meet you all (and especially to learn what books you have loved)!

Our final Book Club of the year was held on May 20th. This was our annual VT Golden Dome Book Award Voting Party. We not only had a great time and we also remembered to vote! Last year, we had so much fun that we forgot to vote.

At our Voting Party we also recognized 4 EMES students who have read all 25 of the 24-25 VT Golden Dome Book Award nominees - 3 of the four students are 4th graders! Quite an accomplishment.

Our votes have been submitted to the VT Dept of Libraries and we should know the statewide winner soon.

EMES students picked

Lasagna Means I Love You by Kate O'Shaughnessey as our winner.

Next year's VT Golden Dome Book List can be found here

The VT Golden Dome Book Award is for students in grades 4th - 8th

Happy Reading!

Arlyn

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