CVU Celebrations

6/12 - RISE Presentation Day

6/12 - Convocation for Seniors - 6:30 Ira Allen Chapel

6/13 - Senior Breakfast and Graduation Rehearsal - 8:00

6/13 - Senior Picnic - 1:00--3:00 Shelburne Beach

6/14 - Graduation - 2:00 UVM Patrick Gym

Congratulations to our 2024-2025 Student Council Co-Presidents. For the first time ever, there was a tie between two groups. Instead of holding a run-off, the crew have advocated for a four person co-presidency. They believe this model will increase representation, inclusion and student engagement as well as allow for creative collaboration and innovation. Well done to all ten candidates who ran respectful, fun and thoughtful campaigns. (Pictured left to right Chase Leonard, Lily Williams, Lauren Knudsen and George Taylor)

From Jess LaPlante: Congratulations to the 2024 (and 20th anniversary) Snelling Cracker Bat Relay champions! Snelling students JD Kogut, Bode Russell, Grayden Conforti, Charlie Moore, Ellie Porter, Willcox Elliott, and Roman Wolny (absent from photo, dismissed for a track meet) used creativity, physical prowess, and knowledge to add their names to this coveted prize. Great job to all who participated and Congratulations again to team 1/2 Dozen + One.

From Jess LaPlante: On Saturday, May 18, CVU Track and Field traveled to St Albans for the Bob White Relays. The athletes had some amazing performances but the highlight of the day was the coaches 4X100 relay to close the meet. We started with distance coach Cory Coffey coming out of the blocks with a handoff to our blazing fast sprint coach Rae Bronenkant. Rae passed the baton off to Co-head coach Dave Kogut who completed a textbook handoff to long time CVU hurdles coach King Milne. The swarm of student athletes cheering on their coaches was exhilarating and that energy carried them across the finish line.

Sometimes it really pays to be a “Field/Throws” coach. If anyone wants to see the video…I’ve got it on my phone.

Congratulations to this year’s recipients of the Snelling House Core Awards! These students excelled both in and out of the classroom in their 9th grade year. Thank you for being excellent human beings!

Congratulations to Chittenden Core Award recipients!

From Meredith Visco: Autumn Miller crocheted her prom dress this year and we got to witness the process firsthand in our "fun with yarn AKA knitting/crocheting" C3.

From Olaf Verdonk: Here is a picture of Robert N. and Emma C. with Dave Trevithick. These two students did a herculean job of not only getting an old tractor running again to power a biofuel pellet generator, but getting the entire crazy Rube Goldberg machine working again!

The machine turns grass, wood chips, and other plant based waste into burnable pellets for wood stoves! Robert and Emma started this project Semester 1 with Dave T in Natural Resources and finished it 2nd semester through Nexus.

From Gary Lambert: Here is the season finale of The CVU Show. In our last NEW episode for the year, we turned the spotlight on our departing Principal Adam Bunting as he prepares for his new position as Interim Superintendent for our district.

This week's episode is packed with surprises and CVU news and information that you won't want to miss!

https://youtu.be/reXV8O2D5GY

Thank you for your support CVU.

We will be back next year with more interviews and stories about our CVU community.

Also, if you aren't a credits watcher, you will miss a very special message at the end of this week's show, so please watch to the very end.

From Olaf Verdonk: MASSIVE THANK YOU to Lucy Dysinger and Elizabeth Manning. They did an incredible job of running a Lego Robotics Club during C3 all year long. They did all the planning and curriculum for running and teaching this program! Great job you two! Their passion, empathy, and enthusiasm engaged a massive variety of students!

I want to give a particular shout out to Lucy for working and engaging Kiza a new student to CVU this year.

From Olaf Verdonk: Students have been busy elves over the semester, working to complete wood, metal, and engineering projects!

Here are Wood Shop students with their cutting boards and Viking/star-gazing chairs.

Sophie B with her CNC machined Vermont cutting board!

Jorja G with her laser engraved, Browning inspired Viking chair.

and more pics...

From Olaf Verdonk: RoboHawk members James Haines and Clay Nicholson and CVU Alumni and former RoboHawk member Crawford Phillips worked with outgoing Superintendent Rene Sanchez and community professionals from BETA, Global Foundries, and FIRST Robotics in VT to develop a presentation that they gave at the Vermont Superintendent's Spring Conference!

They presented to over a third of Vermont's superintendents on FIRST Robotics and advocated for robotics teams and the valuable real world STEM and professional skills that these programs offer students in all Vermont schools.

From Abigail Niquette: On Thursday, May 16th, CVU's Amnesty International chapter held "Jam for Peace," their annual music event during lunch in the cafe. Every year the event has a human rights theme and actions that students are encouraged to participate in. This year's theme was Reproductive Rights, and they received over 100 student signatures throughout the lunch block for Amnesty's petition to the US Congress. Shout outs to Frankie Fidler, Xander Olszweski, Nisha Hickok, and Addison Maurer for their live performances. Thank you to all students who helped make the event a success!

From Katherine Riley: The inaugural Senior Sunset was a smashing success! It was a nice bookend to the Senior Sunrise in September with perfect weather, festive games and snacks. Thank you to the Student Council leaders who organized a fun evening and started a new CVU tradition for our graduating class.

Here's a couple pics from the Jazz concert - the pic on the right is the seniors.

CVU's Scholars Bowl team finished their 2023-24 season in grand style with a great trip to Atlanta, GA where they played in the 2024 High School National Championship Tournament over the weekend of May 24-27. The team went 6-4 in its opening matches to qualify for the playoff rounds, where they were eventually defeated. This is a great achievement due to the extremely high level of competition at this event. We played - and defeated - teams from bigger schools, bigger cities and bigger states. We ran our team record winning streak up to 49 games until falling to a team that finished 5th overall. Nearly 400 teams participated in this event, the biggest quiz bowl tournament in the world, and CVU finished in the top 30% overall. CVU's Scholars Bowl team has played in four National Championship tournaments in the past five years and reached the playoff round in all of them, a rare achievement for a Vermont school. Our record this year was 53 wins, 5 losses.

The team also had the opportunity to do a good bit of sightseeing in Atlanta, and a great time was had by all. I extend grateful and special thanks to Kiran MacCormick, who has worked with me with Scholars Bowl for the past four years and did a great job supporting me with the team in Atlanta.

Representing CVU at this tournament included the following team members: Frank Fidler, Jacob Graham, Elias Leventhal, and Colin Ravlin.

This was a super group of students with which to travel, and are great ambassadors for CVU and our school district. Many thanks to all for your support of our Scholars Bowl championship season,

John Bennett

From Rahn Fleming: Drew Farmer, #11, Catcher for the Redhawk Softball Team. Getting in a little off-the-field practice at catching... in this case a big ol' frog from the watery gully just below the softball diamond. As with softball, so too with frogs: sometimes one gets away from you and goes right in your face! And this is why you wear the mask.

From Lena Kirillova: Thank you to everyone who showed up to celebrate our queer and allied youth communities at the 4th Annual CVSD Youth Pride Rally on June 1st! We blasted some tunes, enjoyed the most amazing tacos from Viva el Sabor, marched down CVU Road, listened to Story Hour with Emoji Nightmare, and engaged in inspirational speeches from several of our students as well as Vermont Representative Saudia LaMont. The CVSD GSA clubs thank you for your support!

From Susie Moakley: The following CTE/CVU students placed Bronze or Gold in the SkillsUSA Competition. Gold Winners will be going to Nationals in Atlanta, Georgia the week of June 24th.

Richard Peters - Web Design (Bronze)

Mark Smith - Pin Design (Bronze)

Jeremiah Batres - Web Design (Gold)

Jay Leuschner - Advertising Design (Gold)

From Leanne Morton: The Latin 4 students culminated their Roman Army unit by creating shields and exercising their marching skills and testudo formations. CVU campus was well protected!

From Rae Bronenkant: This past weekend CVU sent our state qualifying athletes to Burlington High School for the Division 1 State Championship, and they showed up! The boys team scored an impressive 40 points with a 6th place finish. The girls scored 112 points en route to their first State Title in 49 years. Everyone worked so hard and it was incredible to see our athletes compete. These girls have worked so hard and some of them have 'triple crowned'; winning a state title in Cross Country, Indoor, and Outdoor Track. Witnessing yet again the incredible effort and determination displayed by this team was truly awe-inspiring. Say congrats as you see team members around!

Free press article:

From Lianna Reed and Deborah Newell-Robinson: First day of RISE was a flowery success! Exploring Small Businesses in Chittenden County started off RISE with a trip to Green Mountain Floral Supply led by Kim and Tom Jennings! Students learned about the wholesale flower market and the impact that this local business has both in Vermont and beyond! We are so grateful to our community partners for their support of CVU and the RISE program. Kim and Tom and their team organized a flower arranging mini workshop for all of us which was an awesome added bonus!

From Kari Hoose: Mount Abe (and Mohamed’s first hike ever!!)

From Karen Kirkland: Community member and CPA Ashley Foutz shared her budgeting and investing expertise this afternoon at our RISE “Adulting Your Way to Financial Independence “ session. Students were eager to learn and had many excellent questions. Next week - credit scores and investing guest speakers.

Guest speaker Chris Smith speaks about economics and investing

Holiday Baking judges

All the judges - Trevor, Abe, Cassidy, Peter, Grace, Victoria

All three teams from The Experience RISE completed their escape rooms in record time! And a hearty thanks to Representative (and Board member) Angela Arsenault for welcoming our group to the State House!

Lena Kirillova and Tina Roberts' Danceploration RISE session took a field trip to Downtown Burlington High School this week to learn about African dance! Thank you to Mr. Kofi Amoah and his BHS students, who were incredibly welcoming. Special shout-out to our lovely bus driver Brian Dalmer for driving us around all day!

CVU values service to one’s community. Social Studies teacher and Colchester Fire Department Lieutenant, Jeff Hindes, stopped by the Shelburne Fire Department to chat about the fire service with his current senior and advisee, FF Aren Eisenman, and former student, Chief Andrew Dickerson. It’s great to see these all three of these CVU students, past and present, serving their communities.

The Champlain Valley School District will use a new parent/guardian app, Stopfinder, for the upcoming school year. Stopfinder is the easy-to-use, secure, all-in-one app that allows you to have the most accurate information about your student’s bus schedule at any time from anywhere. You will be able to set up alerts to let you know when your bus is approaching for both morning pick-up and afternoon drop-off. Only parents and guardians will be able to see the information for their student(s) unless they authorize others to see their student’s transportation information in the app.

The email address that is currently on file in PowerSchool with the district will be used for Stopfinder setup this summer. This is another important reason for families and caregivers to update PowerSchool forms when requested over the summer. Please contact your school’s main office to make a change to your primary email address any time you have a change.

Stopfinder can be downloaded for free from the App Store or Google Play. Stopfinder will require
an invite and registration through the district prior to accessing your student’s transportation
schedule. Please watch for a Stopfinder invitation, which will be sent to your primary email
address, between August 15th and August 20th, 2024. Please contact me with questions at
gmarckres@cvsdvt.org.

Gary Marckres, CVSD Chief Operations Officer

Summer EBT Program to Help Feed Kids

Vermont is among the first states to launch the new permanent Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer (SEBT) program to help feed eligible school-aged children during the summer vacation months.

The benefit is $120 for the summer per eligible child. Learn more in this document and in this VTDigger article.

Hello CVU Families,

CVU is establishing a sister school in Bavaria, Germany. The school is called Albrecht-Ernst Gymnasium in the town of Oettingen. Last fall we welcomed our first exchange student, Eva. We’re now looking for a rising junior to host Anna. The idea is that our CVU student would then be hosted by Anna’s family in Germany later in the year. The length of the exchanges are flexible for both the visit to the United States and to Germany. This year our German guest was here for one month and our CVU student plans to visit Germany for two weeks this summer.

Anna is 16 years old and will celebrate her 17th birthday in October. She loves to dance and enjoys running. Anna is allergic to cats so a household with cats would not work for her.

There are more students at Albrecht-Ernst Gymnasium interested in the exchange program with CVU. If your family is interested in hosting Anna or another student this coming fall, please reach out to me at kriley@cvsdvt.org or 802-482-7152.

Be SMART This Summer

Safety is always an adult responsibility.

Unintentional shootings are far more likely to occur when children and teens are home from school. As summer break approaches, it’s more important than ever to remember to secure all firearms and to ask about the presence of unsecured guns in homes your child visits.

See more on this flyer.

Do you need to secure your firearm? Free cable gun locks are available in our school offices and the district's office; stop by and pick one up!

Free Summer Meal Boxes for Children 18 and Under!

This program starts on Monday, June 24th.

Order your meal boxes using the form on this page of our website.

You can also look for the announcement on the district and school websites.

You will need to order meals for your child(ren) each week for the following week

Remember that all meal boxes must be picked up at:

St. Jude's Church 10759 Route 116, Hinesburg, VT 05461

on Mondays from 7:00 AM to 1:00 PM or until all meal boxes are gone.

Meal boxes may only be picked up by children or their parents or guardians.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Scott Wagner at: swagner@cvsdvt.org

This institution is an equal opportunity provider.

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