Calais Cougar Chronicle

Hello Calais Cougars!

What a beautiful week! It’s nice to finally be feeling the sun and warmer temps has been a much needed change.

Today our school community engaged in Green Up Day activities with students by greening up around campus and local roadsides. I LOVE to see how our community has shown up for this! We had many family volunteers this morning and a big thank you goes out to Callie Weller and her team (Danielle Barclay, Chris Tuller, and Lauralea Curavoo) for organizing and facilitating this event. Making these connections with our community is important and they don’t happen without good people jumping in. Thank you!

As many families and caregivers may have heard, we have been experiencing a high number of challenges with unsafe and unkind behavior at recess and as a result, we have temporarily taken the choice of playing competitive games off the list of options. You can imagine that there are many students who are unhappy with this decision. I’ve spent time with them this week, letting them know this decision is not made lightly. Most of the time, students are able to engage in play with little difficulty and it’s a great chance to practice the physical, social, emotional, and behavioral skills they need to be a part of a healthy community. Unfortunately there have been too many incidents, where competitive play has gone from friendly banter, to trash talk, to unkind words, even some swearing, and in way too many cases, physical aggression between players. Calais Elementary is committed to offering time at recess that fosters community, safety, and inclusion. We are taking this week and next to focus on community, cooperation, and conflict resolution and plan to return to options with healthy competition the week of May 13th utilizing the skills we’ve learned around how we will approach games, sportsmanship, team building and problem solving. There are lifelong skills that come up in competitive games that are important for our children to have:

• learning how to accept sometimes you win and sometimes you lose

• if a call doesn’t go your way, you need to shake it off

• you should ask first if someone wants help or tips or feedback before saying what you think. They may not want feedback.

• we should work on sharing the spotlight. There is no I in team. Especially at recess!

On a final note, it was wonderful to see so many folks at the budget information meeting at Calais Wednesday night. There was great dialogue about supporting schools. I hope you’ll come out to vote yes on our school budget next Tuesday. We need your support!

Thank you,

Ms. Cat, CES Principal

Information, Registration, Introductions, and Screenings

The Washington Central Unified Union School District registration process is available online for the 2024-2025 school year.

The Pre-K and K registration process must be completed for students who are attending our public school programs and students who are attending private, pre-qualified programs through Act 166 in 2024-2025.

Registration for Pre-K 3 is for students who are 3 years old on or before September 1, 2024. Pre-K 4 is for students who are 4 or 5 years old (5 years old and not enrolled in Kindergarten) on or before September 1, 2024 from the towns of Berlin, Calais, East Montpelier, Middlesex, and Worcester.

Kindergarten is for children who turn age 5 on or before September 1, 2024. If you have not recently moved in to our district and your child already attends public Pre-K, they are already registered for Kindergarten in our district.

Please go to our website at www.wcuusd.org and follow the directions after clicking the icon titled "Online Registration" located under the slides on the right-hand side of our website or you will find more information, including forms, under the "Pre-K Information" in the same area.

If registering for public Pre-K in your local elementary school, it is strongly suggested that families complete the online registration process by as soon as possible. We will begin offering placements to students in the late spring. For Pre-K placements 4 year olds are given priority until the 3/29/24 date and then students are placed on a first-come-first-served basis, space is limited. If necessary, we will create a waitlist and will offer spots in our public Pre-K programs, also on a first come, first served basis. All registration paperwork must be completed before a placement will be offered.

WCUUSD offers childcare options through Community Connections in order to increase access to public Pre-K programs.

Please contact Kim Bolduc, Coordinator of Early Education and Expanded Learning Opportunities at Kbolduc@u32.org or 223-7936 ext. 305 if you have any questions regarding Pre-Kindergarten, Act 166, or Community Connections before or after care options. Please include the town you live in your email or message.

We will be offering Pre-K play-based Introduction and Screening opportunities for each school as follows:

Berlin: Monday, March 25th & April 1st call 802/223-279 COMPLETED
Calais: Wednesday, May 15th call 802/454-1111
East Montpelier: Monday, April 15th call 802/223-7936 COMPLETED
Rumney/Doty (Middlesex): Monday, May 20th call 802/223-5429 or 802/223-5656
Doty/Rumney (Worcester): Monday, May 20th call 802/223-5656 or 802/223-5429

Should you have any concerns about your child's development, please contact our Special Education Teachers Bess Powers and Dawn Bates at bpowers@u32.org or dbates@u32.org or call 802/223-2796.

See below for a new and exciting summer soccer camp opportunity run by our very own U-32 soccer program! You can register here:

Downloadable link below

5/4 - Green Up Day

5/7 - Budget Revote

5/9 - Friends of Calais Meeting

5/11 - Girls Lacrosse Clinic (2nd-6th Grade)

5/15 - Pre-K Introduction and Screening

5/17 - Field Trip - Ethan Allen Homestead Museum (3rd & 4th Grade)

5/18 - Girls Lacrosse Clinic (2nd-6th Grade)

5/22 - Board Meeting (U32)

5/25 - Girls Lacrosse Clinic (2nd-6th Grade)

5/30 - Field Trip - VINS (K-2)

6/4 - Calais Art and Music Night

6/11 - Unity Day

6/13 - Rising 7th Graders - Trip to Boulder Beach

6/13 - Friends of Calais Meeting

6/18 - Last day of school - half day for students

6/18 - 6th Grade Graduation

Evacuation Drill in June - TBD

7/8-7/12 - Raider Summer Soccer Camp

Lennox

Niko

Liam

Hi Calais Cougars, don't litter!

Today we are interviewing Liam.

His favorite color is green!!

His least favorite color is gray (I love gray).

His favorite food is stuffed crust.

His least favorite food is celery!

His favorite sweet food is cookies n' cream ice cream.

His least favorite sweet food is lemon cake!

His favorite animal is a bald eagle.

His least favorite animal is a shark.

His favorite TV show is Dash.

Bye for now!

Calais grounds before and after greening up! (There was so much more than just these photos!)

Working hard!!