CVU Celebrations

Dear CVU Community,

This past Saturday, Punxsutawney Phil predicted another six weeks of winter. While some may be disappointed and others delighted, I’d suggest not investing too much in either reaction—Phil’s accuracy is only about 40%.

If you love winter, take advantage of Vermont’s beauty this weekend with skiing, ice fishing, or snowshoeing. If you’re hoping Phil was wrong, it’s the perfect time to cozy up with a good book. As part of our Equitable Practices Reading Group, I’m currently enjoying Gather by Vermont author and educator Kenneth Cadow. However you choose to spend the weekend, stay safe and have fun!

Join the crew tomorrow down at the Burlington waterfront to cheer on our CVU Penguin Plungers. They are closing in on their $20,000 goal. It’s not too late to donate to this great cause! (Click here)

2/8 - Penguin Plunge and Winter Ball

2/13 - 8th Grade student, parent night 6:30-7:45

2/21 - Winter Carnival

2/24-2/28 - February Break

3/3 - Advisor/Student/Parent/Caregiver Conferences, no school

3/4 - District In-Service, no school

3/12 - CVU Blood Drive

Hello CVU! This is Mira. This week we started our Student Council meeting with a presentation about the school budget and the upcoming vote on it. The presentation illustrated what changes are going to happen if the budget passes as well as how schools get their money in the state of Vermont. The presentation was put on by two Student Council members who are part of a group learning about the budget, and educating our community about it. The presentation clearly illustrated the stakes of this election and how no matter what there will be significant changes in our school with our budgets passing and if our budget doesn’t pass, those changes will only become more extreme. While some classes have seen this presentation, we are hopeful it will be able to be seen by all of our student body. After watching the presentation, we broke into our normal groups, the anti-bullying committee, CVU Blood Drive, Valentines Day Celebration and 8th Grade Parent Night. 8th Grade Parent Night will be February 13, at 6:00 pm at CVU. It is specifically for all rising Freshman and their families to learn what being a Redhawk will entail. Have a great weekend Hawks!

Celebrate Valentine's Day with The Nest with

CVU Community Call-Outs!

Wish friends, staff, faculty, or that special someone a Happy Valentine's Day in the next issue of The Hawks' Nest. Simply scan the QR code or email cvuhawksnest@cvsdvt.org. Submissions are due February 10th. Nothing inappropriate, please.

With thanks,

The staff of The Hawks' Nest

From Kathryn Kernoff: Congratulations to Gracie Sanchez who was 3rd place in Impromptu Speaking at the State championship. In Impromptu, students have only 1 minute to think before delivering a 2-3 minute speech on an assigned topic. Gracie also was awarded first place in impromptu at the South Burlington tournament earlier this year.

Other highlights of the speech and debate team's season so far include Meredith Golek - 2nd place in Extemporaneous Speaking, Joaquin Cowart and Winston Ross - 5th place in novice debate, Patrick Donegan and Nolan Ross - 7th place in varsity debate, and Theo Novak - 4th novice debate speaker.

CVU/CTE Honor Roll for Q2

Honor Roll A: Megan Alexander, Aidan Bezio, Jackson Bush, Hailey Corron, Bowie Douglas, Kaiden Fisher, Lexi Hayes-Francis, Makayla Johnson, River Knox, Makenna Leggett, Nico McLean, Ali Monniere, Kenadi Mora, Boden Moreau, Cheyenne Morin, Avery Myott, Elizabeth Ponce, Madilynn Tucker, Jacob Villeneuve, Kyle Walker, Ryan Wood

Honor Roll B: Brian Bora, Calib Brosseau, Leo Bush, Owen Fowler, Steven Gauthier, Kyle LaFleur, Brooke Loftus, Jordan Podlaski, Keegan Smith, Mark Smith, Jenna Sweeney, Grim Therrien

The CVU Gender & Sexuality Alliance (GSA) spent the past couple of weeks making pride buttons that we will be selling next week (Feb 10-14) for our annual Valentine's Day fundraiser! Students have been flexing their art skills and inspiring LGBTQIA+ joy - whether they made pronoun pins to affirm multiple kinds of pronouns or drew the pride flags that speak to them, their celebration of diversity and identity has been infectious. Pictured: Abby Lascelles & Lena Kirillova.

From Cameron Brownell: Congratulations to Nate McNabb, Hannah Stein, Vivian Volzer, Jennifer Mumley, Calvin Karlhuber, and Abigail Usher who earned scores high enough to be accepted into the Vermont All-State Chorus! This is a major accomplishment, so please congratulate these students when you see them. In order to earn acceptance to the festival, these students had to sing in a quartet (one on a part), sing a solo, sing a major scale and arpeggio, and sight-read music they've never seen before! Wish them well as they prepare for the festival in May at Essex High School.

From Andrew Miskavage: Congratulations to Anna Dauerman, Yvonne Miceler, Gwen Irwin, and Nick Gordon for their acceptance into the Vermont All State Band this year. And congratulations to Joshua Lu, Maya Girard, Quinn Tyler, Leo Koenig, Luci Simmons, Cecelia Scriver, Ariel Toohey, Nadia Kono, Abby Girard, Sam Kafferlin, Saffron Chang, and Izzy Schwendler for their acceptance in the Vermont All State Orchestra this year. These students earned their spots through an audition process that included preparing a professional-level piece of music, demonstrating scale skill proficiency, and sight-reading an unfamiliar piece of music.

Special congratulations to Yvonne Miceler (flute) and Joshua Lu (violin) for winning their category in the Vermont All State Music Festival Scholarship competition. To compete in this event, students must perform a 5-10 minute selection of music from memory. Bravo to each of you!

From Meredith Visco: Today in the Women in Sports Club, Stella Rakochy taught the other club members how to wrap a wrist. She learned these skills at Governor’s Institute last summer as part of the Health and Medicine program.

Excitement builds as RoboHawks head into the final stretch. Tomorrow, February 8th, the RoboHawks teams #5741, #22683, and #27581 will be competing in the FIRST Robotics FTC State Championships at South Burlington High School from 10am to 4pm!

This past week was critical for all of our teams as we finalized our presentations and engineering portfolios, and optimized our robots. We are pumped to have THREE RoboHawks teams in the competition this year, and with past success qualifying for the World Championships in Houston, we are determined to secure both qualification slots for Worlds with our CVU teams. The RoboHawks teams are all ready to bring their A-game and can’t wait to see what we can accomplish tomorrow at the State Championships!

Check out the RoboHawk website for more information about our team and club activities. https://www.robohawks5741.com

Learn About CVSD’s FY26 Budget & Early Voting Opportunities

Visit www.cvsdvt.org/budget to learn more about CVSD's FY26 budget, its impact on CVSD schools and local taxes, plus where, when and how to vote. Here are a few key upcoming dates:

Tuesday, Feb. 11 - Budget Informational Meeting at Shelburne Community School Library. All are welcome. 5 p.m.

Wednesday, Feb. 12 - Early voting begins. Ballots are not automatically mailed; request yours from your town clerk or at https://mvp.vermont.gov/

Thursday, Feb. 13 - Informational tabling at CVU 8th Grade Parent Night, 6:30-7:45 p.m.

www.cvsdvt.org/budget