Washington Central Connections

Dear Washington Central,

As we wind down from February break, we gear up for Town Meeting Day, and I hope that each of you exercises your right to vote by going to the polls. Our Administrative Team, staff, and School Board worked diligently to build a budget for next year that is focused on meeting student needs and provides a student-centered educational experience. I encourage you to review our Annual Report to learn more about our schools and the district. Every budget tells a story about our schools, communities, and the students we serve. In this budget, we can see that our schools are committed to providing good reading instruction and support for students who struggle. This budget also shows a commitment to providing a range of services, although not always as much as we wish we could provide, but the budget makes an effort to provide those services while being responsible for the long-term sustainability of our communities. I appreciate the consistent support that our communities show for education and look forward to continuing the good work in our schools.

The end of February also marks the end of Black History Month, and it is important to remember that Black History is our history as a nation, and learning about the contributions of black scientists, authors, musicians, and others does not end on February 28. Our curriculum strives to make the accomplishments of people of color known throughout the year. We must remember that knowledge and power are not owned or filtered by just one group of people. We should be able to see examples of all of us represented in who and what we learn about. Diversity is what makes our knowledge deeper and richer.

Please take some time to see what else is happening in our district in the rest of this newsletter, and I hope t everyone has had a restful and enjoyable break.

Sincerely,

Steven Dellinger-Pate

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way

Our January In-Service focused on Just Getting By, a documentary by Bess O’Brien of Kingdom County Productions. Her films are about the stuff that breaks our hearts and demands we (the audience) become more aware. Bess’ work calls us in to meet people who have been formerly incarcerated; struggled with body image and disordered eating; caught in the crises of prescription drugs, heroin addiction, and recovery; kids of the foster care system; survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse — indeed, she zooms in on us, our families, and our neighbors in Vermont.

Bess O’Brien insists we meet the people in her films and see why they are in the life situations they are in. Just Getting By is about home, food, and economic insecurity. We know poverty has consequences: low birth rates, lead poisoning, asthma, sleep deprivation, malnutrition, inhibited concentration and lower cognitive agility, high dropout rates, drug and alcohol abuse, gun violence, lower life expectancy, and deep generational consequences that all show up in our schools with kids who are bullied or bully, have outsider status, and often poor health.

Some of our students need a hot shower, breakfast and lunch, a cozy place to be quiet and calm. We may each wonder, do we have a safety net if our circumstances flip? Will our community hold us?

Things don’t have to be this way.

Matthew Desmond writes in Poverty by America that we must look beyond the poor to new policies and renewed political movements….and we all must become, in our way, poverty abolitionists, --- “unwinding ourselves from our neighbors’ deprivation and refusing to live as unwitting enemies of the poor.”

Desmond says that if corporations and individuals with an income of $400,000 and above actually paid their fair share of taxes instead of escaping through loopholes, we could achieve infrastructure repairs, clean air, clear water, and increase food and housing security, health services, and the well-being of everyone.

With imagination and determination, we can teach to out hate hate and harm. We can learn to invent and create more justice and more children thriving.

Brian Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, says, “The opposite of poverty is not wealth. The opposite of poverty is justice.”

Bess O’Brien offers some ideas about what we can do. Things don’t have to be this way. We can all help our neighbors.

Justice, after all, is just us.

Shelley Vermilya

Celebrate Women’s History Month by attending Herstories, a community discussion of intersectional feminism.

Learn about the complicated divides of racism within the women’s suffrage movement, and discuss how the long fight for voting rights continues today. For teens and adults. At Kellogg Hubbard Library on Wednesday, March 19, from 6:30 - 7:30 pm.

This special event will be presented by Mayla Landis-Marinello, an 11th grade student in the Pilot program at U-32.

We are pleased to announce that the Washington Central Unified Union School District is among the six recipients of the Community Schools Foundation Grant. As a part of the original configuration process, a number of board and community members raised questions about the possibilities and implications of a WCUUSD Community Schools Model as an avenue for deepening the purpose and design of our school district so that it provide a viable sustainability model for all members of the WCUUSD community. Our schools, buildings, children, and families are remarkable assets and resources to their communities, the WCUUSD Community Schools Model, supported by the Foundation Grant will seek to explore how we can expand on these assets to deepen the interconnectedness and vibrance of our entire district.

As members of the Vermont Community Schools Community, WCUUSD will use this foundational funding to build a shared vision of how a Community Schools model can support a fiscally responsible, programmatically diverse, and operationally sustainable future for WCUUSD. Foundational funding will be used to support a three-pronged approach to the WCUUSD Community Schools Model:

1. Rigorous, relevant, and inclusive curriculum for all

2. Expanded Community Health and Wellness services to address out of school barriers to learning

3. Comprehensive ThirdSpace programming with robust community partnerships to ensure all students, families, and community members have access to learning beyond the school day.

We are currently seeking to create an advisory board to act as an interview committee for a Community School Coordinator and continue in an advisory and design capacity to the three areas of focus listed above.

The interview and advisory committee will be composed of 8-10 people members of each of the following: the current Configuration Committee, the WCUUSD Leadership Team, the U-32 student body, community members, and faculty/staff representatives. The task of the committee will be led by the Community School Coordinator and a member of the WCUUSD Leadership Team. If you are interested in participating in this committee, please read the Grant Overview for context and send an email to Rebecca Tatistcheff (U-32 Principal) expressing your interest, availability, and how your perspective aligns to the work of the committee to engage in helping to build and tune a WCUUSD Community Schools Model.

• March 3, 2025 WCUUSD Annual Informational Meeting @ U-32 5:30-6:30 PM
• March 4, 2025 Town Meeting Day Don't Forget to Vote !
• March 12, 2025 WCUUSD Board Meeting ( Board Reorganization) 6:15-9:15 PM
• March 19, 2025 Configuration Committee 5:00 - 6:00 PM ( Virtual Only)
• March 19, 2025 WCUUSD Board Meeting 6:15-9:15 PM ( Virtual Only)
• March 26, 2025 Policy Committee 5:15-6:45 PM ( Virtual Only )
• March 29, 2025 Rumney Pie Breakfast 10:00-Noon
• April 5, 2025 Mud Season Talent Show @ Doty