Dear WCUUSD Educators,

I am paying attention to the number of views each newsletter receives. As of today, the first newsletter has gotten 190 views and the second newsletter has gotten 132 views.

I'm curious about the drop in readership, and I am wondering what I can do to increase those numbers. Is the newsletter too long? Is there too much text? With the help of some of my colleagues, I am going to learn how to embed a brief video introduction next time around. We'll see if that makes a difference!

As always, please reach out if you have any questions or concerns about the contents (and format!) of this newsletter. I can be reached at jmillerarsenault@u32.org or (802) 229-0553 x1310.

And, if you are reading the newsletter for the first time and would like to check out previous editions, you can find them here.

Thanks for reading,

Jen

Curriculum Council typically meets after school on second and fourth Mondays. This month the second Monday was Indigenous People’s Day. On October 28, the fourth Monday, a number of Curriculum Council members were attending a professional learning opportunity. Instead of meeting in person, we engaged in asynchronous work. We are drafting a work plan to advance work related to Functional Skills, Writing and Data Analysis. We are also continuing to explore ways to connect our work with the work of the Humanity and Justice Coalition. To that end, some of us joined the Families of Color affinity group last week to explore issues related to decision-making about curriculum and the selection of instructional books and material.. We also spent some time during our asynchronous meeting exploring curriculum materials created by Clemmons Family Farm as we continue to consider ways to implement both the goals of our district’s strategic plan and the new Vermont Education Quality Standards that go into effect on July 1, 2025.

• Berlin: Celia Guggemos

• Calais: Jenna Howard

• Doty: Allison Fayle

• East Montpelier: Alicia Lyford, Hilary Paquet, Dave Willard

• Rumney: Veronica Eldred

• U-32: Erin Galligan-Baldwin, Elizabeth Marks, Amy Molina, Brittany Perry

• WCUUSD: Ellen Dorsey, Jen Miller-Arsenault

The focus of the upcoming Education Quality Committee meeting on November 6 is post-secondary outcomes. We will focus on post-secondary planning, some of the flexible pathways that we offer to students in order to prepare them for college and career, performance data on the PreACT, PSAT, SAT, and Advanced Placement exams, graduation rates, and college acceptances. The full presentation is not quite ready to share; I've included some slides below for you to preview, and I will include a link to the final presentation in the next newsletter.

Next up in December: Financial literacy!

We are in the middle of our K-6 all district writing prompt fall window. It opened on October 1 and closes on November 22. This document, which was shared with elementary teachers earlier this month, contains the context and details. Many thanks to the Curriculum Campers, Curriculum Council members, and leadership team members who provided feedback on the document. We are in the early implementation phase of this work, and it will get better with more experience and more teacher feedback. K-6 teachers, look for an opportunity to provide feedback shortly after the fall window ends.

In case you missed this announcement last time, the VT Agency of Education recently announced that the spring testing window for VTCAP is March 10-April 25, 2025. Once we determine our local testing dates, I will update the LCAP and the LCAP calendar accordingly.

We have the opportunity to learn with Curriculum Associates together for a day this year.

If you teach i-Ready Classroom Mathematics K-8, please take a few minutes to complete this brief survey about your professional learning needs. We'd like to plan the session with your input. So far only 7 of you have completed the survey (huge thanks to you 7!).

One of our district's core beliefs is Community Engagement and Relationships: Strong, positive relationships are essential to our schools, communities, and students. We nurture connections among people and places.

How might you leverage the upcoming parent and caregiver conferences to nurture connections between your students, their families, and school?

Indeed, how might you approach these conferences in a way that manifests all of our district's core beliefs? Parent and caregiver conferences are a wonderful opportunity to deepen our partnership with families in ways that can help all of our students thrive.

Last spring Katie Novak shared this UDL Personalized Learning Profile during a professional learning session. It is a tool that I think is a useful one in the classroom as we get to know our students and support our students to reflect on themselves as learners. And, I've been thinking about how we might also use it with adult learners. To that end, I encourage you to take a peek and reflect on your own strengths, challenges, preferences, and needs as a learner.

My current plan is to share one resource related to UDL in each newsletter. Below are the resources I've shared so far this year.

UDL resources:

• CAST's updated UDL guidelines
• Lesson planning template

As I shared with you last month, Vermont's new Education Quality Standards go into effect on July 1, 2025. We are preparing for the full implementation in a number of ways. Here are a few:

• Our school board recently approved this Educational Philosophy Statement and this policy, Creating Learning Environments to Engage in Civil Discourse.
• One of the foci of the district Humanity and Justice Coalition is the creation and support of school-based Humanity and Justice groups. Look for more information and an invitation to join this vital work as part of a school team soon.
• Shelley Vermilya, our equity scholar-in-residence, and I are making plans for the fifth annual course on racial and intersectional justice. We plan to design the course in a way that directly supports our district's ability to implement the new EQS. We are currently planning to offer the course on Thursday afternoons after school via Google Meet and one Saturday morning in person each month during second semester. The course is open to all educators in our district. I will share more details, including a course syllabus and an opportunity to sign up, in the November newsletter. In the meantime, please reach out to Shelley or me if you have any questions.