Superintendent's Message

Violet Nichols

February 22, 2024

Dear Parents/Guardians and Staff,

Today the Queer Straight Alliance (QSA) was awarded a check from Rotary to support their continued mission as a club. Thank you to our friends at Rotary and thank you Alison Treston, Scott Carlson, Juniper and Felicity for all that you do and for coming to accept this giant check!

Last week, the middle school hosted a Naturalization Ceremony held by US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Students greeted the 26 new citizens from 16 countries and their families as they arrived and 8th graders were able to attend the ceremony. Judge Kevin Doyle swore them in and Vermont Secretary of State Sarah Copland Hanzas spoke to them about the importance of voting.The 8th grade chorus performed the National Anthem and These Green Mountains and several spoke including Abby Donahue, who gave welcoming remarks, Gus Hauser-Rainville, who read The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus and Peter Lyon, who read an original poem. The Vermont Women League of Voters and US Passport services were also there to get them fully prepared as US citizens. Thank you to Social Studies teachers Christine St. Clair and Sarah Meisenzahl, Vocal Music teacher Aimee Bushey, Principal Scott Sivo, and Assistant Principal Dave Hyatt for helping organize this as well as to all the students who attended. Congratulations to all who were naturalized!

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And tomorrow at the high school, Spoken Word Poet/Emcee and Teaching Artist Rajnii Eddins, will be joining students for an assembly. Rajnii, who has visited SBHS before, has been engaging diverse community audiences for over 30 years. He was the youngest member of the Afrikan American Writers Alliance at age 11 and has been actively sharing with youth and community in Vermont since 2010. As schools are closed for Winter Break next week, this is the perfect way to celebrate the end of Black History Month.

Budget FY25

At last night’s School Board meeting the Board voted to proceed with the proposed budget of $71.2 million dollars and a corresponding tax rate of 23.25%. We are seeing a trend of Chittenden County districts sticking with their voting date of March 5th, as scheduled, despite immense changes in laws pertaining to education funding.

The state is continuing to move the legislation of proposed changes to the statewide education funding process forward. This has been covered in this VT Digger article, two Seven Days articles as well as The Other Paper. Yesterday, the VT State Senate formally approved this version of Act H.850, which will now require the Governor’s signature.

Where we were:

Our FY25 budget of $71.2 million was adopted by the School Board on January 10th. Under the existing Act 127 law, this budget would generate a homestead property tax rate increase of 18.26%. This is before applying property tax credits that approximately 60% of South Burlington residents qualify for. See here for more details.

Due to the nature of Act 127’s 5% cap, that 18.26% tax rate increase did not change even as the budget was lowered. (You may recall the graph I had shared which showed the same tax rate at $71 million as it was at $65 million.) Even if we rolled over the FY24 budget ($62.5 million), the tax rate increase would still be over 16%, which would mean cutting over $8.6 million in budgeted staff, programming, and infrastructure expenses.

This budget reflects the collective impact of Act 127 and the largely unavoidable increase in FY25 expenses driven by contractual staff salaries and benefits, debt servicing, and inflation.

Here are some more helpful contextual materials regarding the budget statewide (these stories came out prior to the proposed Act 127 changes via H.850):

SevenDays article about how Vermont schools have been impacted this budget season
Story from Vermont Public on the rising cost of education
Tim Jarvis, Senior Director of Operations and Finance spoke to NBC5 about our budget and what. Watch the story here.
Tim and I presented the budget on Town Meeting TV at the end of January

If you had requested an absentee ballot for the March 5th election and the vote is canceled, you will automatically receive a new ballot for the subsequent vote. I will keep you updated should you need to be aware of new dates, but it is still important that you register and make a plan to vote!

If you’re not registered, you can do that here up until the day of the election. (Registering now will also ensure you’re registered for the Presidential Election in November.) Town Meeting Day falls at the end of Winter Break so many of you may be out of town. You can request your ballot here. You can mail your ballot to City Hall, 180 Market Street, or drop it off at the 24/7 drop box at the main and back entrances of City Hall. Barring any changes to the election date, those ballots must be received by noon on Monday, March 4th.

For more details, please visit the Budget page on our website at www.sbschools.net/budgetfy25.

Orchard Principal Search

A notice about the Orchard School Principal Interview search has been sent out, and while the District has begun the search process for the position, the Human Resources Department is still actively looking for volunteers to represent the Orchard community on the hiring committee. If you are interested in participating in the process, please complete the Google Application Form and submit it by 9 am on Thursday, February 29, 2024. Your application will be reviewed, and Human Resources will respond to applicants by the end of the day on Friday, March 1. Forms may also be completed in person at the Central Office, 577 Dorset Street.

Committee meetings are scheduled for Monday, March 11th, and Monday, March 18th from 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm at 577 Dorset Street.

Interviews will be held on Monday, March 25, 2024, and Monday, March 26th from 9:00 - 3:30 pm. The second round of interviews will occur on April 1st and will include site visits. A community forum will take place on April 2nd and final interviews will be held on April 5th.

If you have any questions regarding the process, please reach out to Elissa Galvez, Employment Specialist, at egalvez@sbschools.net.

Orchard Principal Search-Request for Volunteers

A notice about the Orchard School Principal Interview search has been sent out, and while the District has begun the search process for the position, the Human Resources Department is still actively looking for volunteers to represent the Orchard community on the hiring committee. If you are interested in participating in the process, please complete the Google Application Form and submit it by 9 am on Thursday, February 29, 2024. Your application will be reviewed, and Human Resources will respond to applicants by the end of the day on Friday, March 1. Forms may also be completed in person at the Central Office, 577 Dorset Street.

Committee meetings are scheduled for Monday, March 11th, and Monday, March 18th from 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm at 577 Dorset Street.

Interviews will be held on Monday, March 25, 2024, and Monday, March 26th from 9:00 - 3:30 pm. The second round of interviews will occur on April 1st and will include site visits. A community forum will take place on April 2nd and final interviews will be held on April 5th.

Transportation Update

After recent retirements and illnesses, our bus drivers have been severely short-staffed and our staff has been doing everything they can to stay on top of changing and canceled routes.

In the meantime, the district has reached out to CCTA and Green Mountain Transit as well as private companies and there are simply not enough drivers so partnership opportunities are unavailable at this time. Green Mountain Transit is eager for the school to play a role in expanding their services to support student needs as their current routes are not conducive to student ridership but a partnership there may be further out.

Two new drivers are in still in the process of completing the tests necessary to earn their CDLs and there has been interest from a new applicant who already has a CDL so there hopefully is relief coming. In the meantime, we will continue with scheduled cancelations as, especially in the winter and with many drivers calling out due to illness, schedules can still be unpredictable. So while I know that this is not easy for families dealing with last-minute changes, this is the best option to give them some notice when routes are not available.

The district will continue to look for more drivers as it has been, using SchoolSpring, job fairs, radio ads, and more. We will also be hosting an event for multilingual families in the district to provide information about job opportunities which will be held on April 10th. I will provide more details as we get closer to that date.

New and Returning Student Registration

At this time, both the New and Returning Student Registration is set to open by March 1st.

Families can access the Returning Student Registration form via the Parent Portal. Any new students who have enrolled since January of 2023 must be linked to parent portal accounts for parents/guardians to access the Returning Student Registration form. Pre K students must be 3 years old on or prior to September 1st and Kindergarten students must be 5 years old on or prior to September 1st.

On March 1st, enrollment will automatically notify families of currently enrolled students that the Returning Student Registration is open with a link to the Returning Student Registration webpage that contains translatable instructions and information.

Once registered, orientation sessions for kindergarten will be held at the elementary schools:

Orchard: April 16 and 17

RMCS: April 17 and 18

Chamberlin: April 17

Contact the schools directly for more information about the orientation.

School's Out Summer Camp

Registration for School’s Out Summer Camp is currently open to School Out’s families will open to all SB families on February 26. Find more information here.

PowerSchool and Staying Up to Date

The district uses PowerSchool and School Messenger to send out all updates and notifications. regarding school closures and other important information.

Please note that transportation updates are only sent to families who have subscribed to transportation services on PowerSchool.

Please make sure all your information is up to date in PowerSchool so you can receive all notifications as quickly as possible.

Notable Items

Check out this story from PBS about Big Picture and mentoring featuring Habitat for Aviation, a program at the Franklin County Airport, and the Women Build Planes project there. Two SBHS 11th graders, Calla Senesac and Miranda Gallagher, spend every 5-7 hours, every Sunday, at the airport with a group of women and girls building a plane and learning a lot along the way.

Big Picture staff Kevin Downey and Nikki St. Mary work with students to identify their passions and turn it into a meaningful curriculum. For more information, visit https://bigpicturesb.org/.

The United Way of Northwest Vermont created a list of all Chittenden County nonprofits that allow teens below 18 to participate in volunteer opportunities. If your student would be interested, you can find the full list here.

The Greater Burlington Girls Soccer League (GBGSL) is a non-profit recreational soccer league, run by volunteer coaches and board members. Their objective is to introduce soccer to young girls, without cost being a concern. They have the lowest registration fees in the area, and offer scholarships to families who cannot afford them. They have many South Burlington kids in their league, but are always looking for more! If you are interested, you can register here until February 5th and the season starts in early May. Email infogbgsl@gmail.com with any questions.

Some great events are happening at the South Burlington Public Library, including South Burlington Public Library's first artist-in-residence, Dr. Jolivette Anderson-Douoning

The series of seven community-building events begins on Friday, February 16th, 2024, with an Opening Reception and Meet and Greet, and a short performance, Poetry and Stories About Black American Migrations: Rural to Urban and South to North.

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Employment Opportunities

The district is hiring! Please follow the links to read the full descriptions for these roles.

Orchard Elementary Principal

Bus Drivers (and Bus Aides)

Training available obtain Commercial Driver's Licenses to eligible candidates, full and part time positions available as well as van drivers and bus monitors

Special Ed teachers:

Frederick H. Tuttle Middle School

Lunchroom:

Full job descriptions are available on School Spring. If you have questions on hiring processes or on employment, please contact Elissa Galvez, Employment Specialist, egalvez@sbschools.net (802) 652-7247.

Notable Dates

February 26-March 4: Winter Break, no school

March 5: Town Meeting Day, no school

April 4-5: Family Teacher Conferences, Half Day

April 8: Half Day for Solar Eclipse (Elementary students will be dismissed at 10:30 am and middle and high school students will be dismissed at 11:30 am, all students will be offered lunch)

April 9: No evening activities

April 12: MS/HS Late Start at 10:35 am

Elementary Early Release at 12:30 pm

April 22-26: Spring Break, no school

There will be no newsletter next week during Winter Break. Have a wonderful break and thank you for reading!

Violet

SBSD App

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Along with the website, the dedicated app will be your best resource for updated menus, schedules and other important information in the event of school closures and delays.

Download the dedicated SBSD app (or scan the QR code )!

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