Colchester School District recently honored a Union Memorial School second grade teacher for forty years of service.

Superintendent Larry Waters presents Debbie Howard with a service award recognizing her forty years of service at Union Memorial School

Debbie Howard began teaching at UMS in 1973. At that time, the world population was 3.937 billion, M*A*S*H and Hawaii Five-O were popular television shows, Jim Croce’s “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” and The Rolling Stones’ “Angie” were topping the charts, the Sears Tower (renamed the Willis Tower in 2009) was completed (and was at that time the tallest building on the planet), the cost of a first-class stamp was $0.08, and Richard Nixon famously told the nation regarding the Watergate tapes, “I am not a crook.”

That was a long time ago! And Debbie has been teaching at UMS since that time!

“It is so hard for me to remember that I have been doing this for forty years,” she said. “I love what I do. I love this district and UMS!”

Union Memorial School’s Debbie Howard

“She’s been doing this for forty years and could easily rest on her experience and laurels; however, she is always one of the first teachers to try something new and/or adopt new teaching methods,” said UMS Principal Chris Antonicci. “For example, she has her students blogging, where a lot of people of her generation avoid computers and technology at all costs. She is simply one of the finest educators with whom I’ve ever worked, and she’s an inspiration to us all.”

“Deb Howard is remarkable,” said Superintendent Larry Waters. “She is a highly skilled teacher who has provided excellent learning experiences for her students, and I express my sincere appreciation for her forty years of service in the district.”

Debbie Howard was the only person in the district who was honored for forty years of service this year. The district honored many other employees for landmark years of service, as well.

Honored for thirty-five years of service were CMS’s Assistant Principal Peg Gillard and MBS’s Brenda Hunt and Louisa Costantino-Foley.

Honored for thirty years of service was CMS’s Mary Beth Dickinson.

Honored for twenty-five years of service were CMS’s Donnalee Barcomb and Ruth Quintin.

Honored for twenty years of service was CHS’s Jeffrey Richey.

Honored for fifteen years of service were CHS’s Kathryn Couillard and Deborah Pratt; CMS’s Cheryl Bouchard, Jennifer Giroux, Marianne Nealy, and Amy Tosch; MBS’s Luba Routsong, Jeanne Racicot, Tammy Walton, and Myrna Laurin; UMS’s Judith Hillis and Colleen Marshall; and PPS’s Priscilla Hammond.

Honored for ten years of service were CHS’s Heather Baron, Steve Davis, Elsie Ducharme, Helen-Marie Jurnak, Marijke Reilly, and Melissa Vilmont; CMS’s AnnaMary Lauricella, John Upchurch, and Paul Morin; MBS’s Carolyn Millham and Jan Wilkinson; PPS’s Jennifer Gamache, Donna Labonte, and Wendy Rogers; and district-wide employee James Lynch.

In all, thirty-seven employees were honored for their service. Given statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicating that the typical American stays in a job for just over four years, our employees’ years of service speak volumes. As was repeatedly expressed at the Vision Summit, it is our entire community—our employees, parents, committed citizens, and students—that shapes us.

Many, many thanks to all of our talented and dedicated employees!

Your schools and your town are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!

On August 21, we released Part I of this article introducing your schools’ enhanced safety and security features. (Please click here to read Part I of this article.)

In Part II, we offer a video explaining the new procedure, presented by Corporal Peter Hull with the Colchester Police Department. Please click here to view it.

As the installations and other logistics concerning the security features are finalized, each school will notify parents when its front-door entry systems go live.

To view the September 2 WCAX segment about the changes, including a video and interview with Superintendent Waters, please click here.

To read the WPTZ article about the changes, please click here.

As a friendly reminder, in addition to added cameras and keyless entry systems in our schools, school doors will be locked during the day. During school hours, keyless proximity identification cards will be used by district employees, and guests to the building will be asked to identify themselves before receiving access. The purpose of these enhancements and additional procedures is to help ensure the health, welfare, and safety of our school community.

For questions or concerns, we encourage you to contact your schools’ principals by phone or e-mail (please click here to access their contact information), or contact our administrative offices at (802) 264-5999. You may also e-mail Superintendent Larry Waters at watersl@csdvt.org.

Your schools and your town are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!

Vermont Principal of the Year Amy Minor has recently returned from Washington DC, where she joined top principals from all around the nation for an important three-day event.

CHS Principal Amy Minor in Washington DC in September

The award-winning principals from all across the country came together to discuss best practices and current education-related legislation and to meet with senators and congressmen and congresswomen on Capitol Hill.

CHS Prinicpal Minor and US Senator Leahy discuss education in Washington DC

(Senator Leahy wore a blue-and-green tie in honor of the Lakers for his meeting with Principal Minor.)

Bellows Falls Middle School Principal Heidi Lucas-Moccia, US Senator Leahy, and Principal Minor at the Capitol in Washington DC

While on Capitol Hill, Principal Minor advocated for funding to support electronic devices for all students in grades 6–12. She shared with legislators some of the current challenges that high school students face, and she shared some of the ways in which CHS is working to personalize learning and the high school experience for all high school students. She also discussed at length the funding challenges that all schools face and how challenging it is to offer innovative programming on a limited budget.

“It was an honor to engage leaders from around the country in such meaningful and important dialogue,” Principal Minor said. “I had the sense that our voices were truly heard; Arne Duncan, Senator Leahy and Senator Sanders, Congressman Welch … they truly listened. It was a phenomenal experience.”

Colchester High School has repeatedly ranked among the top 5 percent of high schools in the nation under Principal Minor’s leadership. Additionally, CHS won high praise from the Vermont Agency of Education for its impressive improvements in performance with Principal Minor at the reins. In fact, Lawrence O. Picus and Associates conducted an extensive case study of CHS for the Vermont State Legislature in order to ascertain how such improvements were accomplished … without high spending and without high teacher salaries. As a result of the comprehensive study, CHS is being regaled as a model for other high schools across the state.

Under Principal Minor’s tutelage, CHS won accreditation from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC)—the result of a long-term, multi-component, and comprehensive assessment, and the school has been invited to present at the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) Fall 2013 and Fall 2014 conferences to present the school’s work on personalizing the academic experience for students through its AT program and to present the school’s work in developing a positive culture, climate, and beliefs for its learning community.

(Principal Minor leads the charge in cultivating a warm and comfortable learning environment, making grand efforts to create and foster school and community spirit. Please click here to watch a video of a surprise faculty flash mob at a pep rally.)

To read the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) press release about Principal Minor’s recognition, please click here.

For those of you who may not have seen WCAX’s coverage of the surprise send-off the CHS students coordinated for Principal Minor, you can watch it here.

Congratulations and very well done, Principal Minor!

Your schools and your town are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!

UPDATE!

Since the original publication date of this article, the 5K event to support the Colchester Community Food Shelf was a tremendous success.

The event, coordinated by Colchester High School senior Ethan Thibault and junior Nigel Sarrazin, raised $4,022 and received 228 pounds in food donations. A total of eighty-six community members ranging in age from 4 to 62 took part in the benefit event!

Participants in the 5K event to benefit the Colchester Community Food Shelf on October 27

“We would like to thank everybody who volunteered their time to either participate or help out at our event,” the students said in a joint statement. “The generous donations are greatly appreciated and will go directly to the Colchester Community Food Shelf.”

To view more photographs from the October 27 event, please click here.

Congratulations, and well done, Ethan and Nigel and all in our community who participated!

As it turns out, academics, wellness, and grassroots activism can fuse quite naturally.

CHS students Nigel Sarrazin and Ethan Thibault

Colchester High School senior Ethan Thibault and junior Nigel Sarrazin have organized a 5K event to benefit the Colchester Community Food Shelf.

Ethan has volunteered at the Colchester Community Food Shelf for well over a year and is incorporating aspects of the program into his Senior Seminar action research project (please click here to read more about these required projects). Nigel—a member of CHS Student Government—is actively involved in community service and fundraising efforts for a variety of organizations. Both students enjoy running and have collaborated in devising the 5K as a lively way of melding an enjoyable, community-oriented activity with a great cause.

Ethan Thibault (photo contributed)

Nigel Sarrazin (photo contributed)

People of all ages and fitness levels are encouraged to participate in the event, which will gently weave its way through the woods behind CHS. Participants may choose to walk or run according to their preference.

“We are accepting monetary and food donations on the day of the race to benefit the Colchester Community Food Shelf, as well,” Ethan said.

The food shelf’s Shirley Meier said that though the organization has averaged approximately ninety-five clients per month over the past several months, there was a sharp spike in need in the month of September.

The 5K steps off at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday, October 27; participants are asked to arrive for registration by 8:15. If you would like to register, please click here to access the event page.

You can also register using this QR code.

(Those who wish to register in person on the morning of the race are asked to arrive earlier.)

Rain or shine, it will be a fun community event to benefit an organization that is of immense help to many of our friends and neighbors.

Student leadership and community outreach is widespread in your community’s schools; students all across the district routinely extend themselves for the benefit of others and work hard to make a difference for those around them. Please click here to read more about just some of these shining examples of student-led activism.

This grassroots initiative well reflects the Colchester School District Vision and Strategic Plan 2012–2017, which speaks to Pathway A: High Standards, Expectations, and Individual Engagement for All Learners; Pathway C: Learning Outside Our Four Walls; Pathway E: Parent, Community, and School Partnerships Among Lifelong Learners; and Pathway F: Wellness-Oriented, Balanced, and Healthy Learners.

Your schools and your town are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!

Sometimes, pictures speak louder than words.

Your schools, your town, and your community are working together like never before.

Enjoy this video … and please share it with others.

Your schools and your town are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!

What should parents know and do in order to support and raise healthy and productive teenagers?

Colchester High School and Colchester Police Department are collaborating to offer a three-part series to help support adolescents in our community.

Join us on Monday, November 18 at 7:00 p.m. in the CHS library for Part I of the series—aimed at helping parents to identify when teenagers are struggling and at risk of self-harm or suicide—entitled “Teenagers: Risk and Resilience.”

This panel presentation of experts—including Dr. Lewis First; Dr. Eliot Nelson; Charlotte McCorkel MSW, LICSW; and Tina Bleau, MA, licensed psychologist—will share current research, best practices, and resources in our community and will provide the audience with a brief presentation followed by a question-and-answer session.

This event is open to all Colchester community members. It speaks to Colchester School District Vision and Strategic Plan 2012–2017′s Pathway D: Commitment to Effective Communication; Pathway E: Parent, Community, and School Partnerships Among Lifelong Learners; Pathway F: Wellness-Oriented, Balanced, and Healthy Learners; and Pathway G: Town + School = One Vision.

About the panel

Dr. Lewis First of WPTZ’s First With Kids is a professor and the chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, the chief of pediatrics at Vermont Children’s Hospital at Fletcher Allen Health Care, and the editor-in-chief of the American Academy of Pediatrics journal Pediatrics.

Dr. Eliot Nelson’s clinical focus is family-centered primary care, preventive pediatrics, and injury prevention. His care philosophy is to promote health, childhood development, mental well-being, and safety for all patients. He was recognized in 1990 by the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles with a Philip E. Rothman Memorial Award for excellence in pediatric resident education, guidance, and inspiration. He was also recognized in 2001 by Voices for Vermont’s Children (formerly the Vermont Children’s Forum) with a David Goldberg Child and Youth Advocacy Award; in 2002 by the American Academy of Pediatrics with a Special Achievement Award for work on firearm injury prevention through legislative efforts; and in 2010 by the American Academy of Pediatrics Vermont Chapter with the Green Mountain Pediatrician Award. Dr. Nelson also serves as a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Injury, Violence, and Poison Prevention, currently working as the council’s membership coordinator.

Charlotte McCorkel MSW, LICSW is the director of First Call for Children and Families at HowardCenter. First Call is a hotline service available to families and students who are experiencing a crisis.

Tina Bleau, MA, licensed psychologist works at the Northeastern Family Institute (NFI) Vermont (part of the North American Family Institute (NAFI) outpatient family center, which offers an array of services, including family-based therapy, evaluation, and training.

Stay tuned for information about later events in this series, which will focus upon current issues facing our youth today.

For more information, please call CHS at (802) 264-5700.

Your schools and your town are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!

In case you have not yet seen the November 2013 issue of Currently Colchester, we wanted to share some important information about the district’s trends in kindergarten enrollment.

As was explained in Superintendent Larry Waters’s article “Colchester School District Kindergarten Enrollments Continue to Rise,” the number of students attending kindergarten in Colchester is on the incline despite the decline in state enrollments in public schools across Vermont.

CSD’s demographer, Bill Smith, discussed the increase a recent school board meeting, demonstrating that kindergarten enrollment has increased from 155 to approximately 190 students over the past two years; CSD had anticipated that approximately 150 new students would enroll. Parallelly, the number of students attending the Essential Early Education program (EEE) has doubled from about thirty-five to more than seventy in the past three years. The numbers may indicate—among other things—that new families are moving to Colchester to establish residency.

And did you know that towns that do not host a high school are required to pay tuition for their students to the schools the students choose to attend (the CSD tuition rate is just over $12,000)? Each year, approximately eighty tuition students in grades 7–12 attend Colchester Middle School and Colchester High School from other communities, mostly from the Grand Isle Supervisory Union.

“The overall projection is that our enrollments have bottomed out and will have small but steady increases,” Superintendent Waters wrote in his recent article. “We may not see the district enrollments of 2,500 students again, but we expect to hold steady around 2,200 students.”

For more information, please call CSD’s administrative offices at (802) 264-5999.

Your schools and your town are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!

The Vermont Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (VTAHPERD) has given a Colchester High School educator its top honor.

Melanie Laquerre recently received VTAHPERD’s Health Educator of the Year award, which recognizes outstanding teaching in health education, at a ceremony at Stoweflake Mountain Resort and Spa in Stowe.

Melanie Laquerre at the award ceremony in Stowe

She spent nearly a year conceptualizing and designing her signature course, “Food: From Soil to Stomach,” collaborating with UVM Extension in order to develop curriculum that was appropriately challenging for high school students (you can read more about the class, which explores the various aspects of food—including growing, cooking, and eating—through an eclectic assortment of subject matters like nutrition and obesity, conventional versus organic agriculture, food miles, sustainability, the treatment of animals in food production, and the global implications of the production and transportation of our food supply, by clicking here).

Melanie Laquerre and CHS Principal Amy Minor at the award ceremony

Melanie also collaborates with other schools within the school district to help establish connections with a wide variety of students and to create collaborative learning opportunities. (Click here to read about a taste-testing event, and stay tuned for an upcoming article discussing her work with waste awareness and recycling efforts.)

Melanie’s honor speaks to the Colchester School District Vision and Strategic Plan 2012–2017′s efforts with Pathway F: Wellness-Oriented, Balanced, and Healthy Learners.

Your schools and your town are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!

Fifty Colchester High School students were recently inducted into National Honor Society!

The National Honor Society (NHS)—which has chapters in all fifty states as well as in many US territories and in Canada—recognizes high school students in grades 10–12 who have exhibited outstanding accomplishments in scholarship, leadership, service, and character.

This prestigious affiliation can only be obtained after a stringent selection process. In order to be considered for induction, candidates must detail their achievements in service and leadership and must meet the cumulative grade-point average requirement. Input about the candidates from faculty members can also be submitted to the local NHS chapter’s faculty council for consideration, and in some cases, the chapter’s faculty council may even interview candidates. The local NHS chapter’s faculty council deliberates the candidates’ qualifications before voting whether to invite a candidate for formal induction.

NHS inductees assume a number of obligations as a condition of their membership; along with maintaining the standards by which they were selected (failure to do so can result in discipline and/or dismissal), membership includes such responsibilities as conducting service projects for their school or community as well as individual service projects, and members attend regular meetings with the NHS’s local chapter. Inducted members enjoy a number of benefits as a result of their affiliation with the National Honor Society—including access to a number of scholarship programs.

We are pleased to announce the 2013/2014 National Honor Society inductees!

Congratulations to all of the inductees, and best wishes!

Your schools and your town are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!

For those of us out there who remember gym class as consisting primarily of kickball and situps, this article should be of particular interest.

How many of us can say that we could canoe or kayak for physical education (PE) credit?

Please click here to view a fun video about a Colchester High School PE unit in which students are doing just that.

In fact, all across your school district, physical education is diverse and engaging and is adaptable in order to meet individual students’ needs. In addition to its increasing academic integration, PE curriculum is steadily evolving into that which is health based and designed to instill a love for physical activity and to encourage healthy lifestyles. By incorporating such activities as cross-country skiing, tennis, and snowshoeing (among others), your schools’ PE curriculum aims to demonstrate how exercise can be a fun way to be proactive about health and wellness for an entire lifetime.

CHS PE teacher Morgan Samler has compiled a video clip offering a visual sampling of some of the high school PE curriculum; please click here to view it.

In 2012, the Vermont State Legislature passed Vermont Act 151 requiring cardiovascular care instruction in public and independent schools. Here, Morgan Samler is instructing a student in chest compressions.

CHS PE teacher Morgan Samler works with a student in CPR training

And if you missed our Spotlight article about the CHS ropes course, you can read it here.

Malletts Bay School has a fantastic climbing wall (purchased with many years’ worth of funds raised as part of the annual Colchester Ski-Skate and Sporting Goods Sale) as part of its offerings (please click here to read an article about it).

Skills learned in physical education classes can also lead to participation in organized athletic activities and even internationally competitive events; even jump roping has becoming an internationally competitive sport. Earlier this year, a mysterious jump roping panda arrived at Porters Point School to help students with their Jump Rope for Heart initiative. (You can read that article and watch a video clip of the mystery panda here.)

Union Memorial School students helped to break a world record for jumping jacks as part of the 2011 Let’s Jump campaign, and as part of a unique UMS walking challenge program, one student walked more than fifty miles during his three years at the school!

Evidence demonstrates that learning and physical activity are complementary—that engaging other parts of the brain during learning will increase retention and enhance knowledge acquisition. And then there are the added benefits of letting students expend some of their physical energy in an interactive, productive way rather than asking them to sit still for long periods of time. (To read a Spotlight article about action-based learning, please click here.)

Physical education is also an important component of wellness, which is a pathway of the Colchester School District Vision and Strategic Plan 2012–2017.

To learn more about physical education programs in Colchester School District, please contact any of your schools.

Your schools and your town are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!

The Colchester School District Vision and Strategic Plan 2012–2017‘s pathways include, among others, Pathway F: Wellness-Oriented, Balanced, and Healthy Learners.

In accordance with this pathway, Colchester Middle School will celebrate “Fat Talk Free Week” November 18–22.

Fat Talk Free Week is a five-day activism campaign designed to draw attention to body image issues and the damaging impact of the “thin ideal” on women in society with the goals of inspiring change in the way students think and feel about their bodies; educating students about the damaging impact of pursuing the “ideal” body; and promoting a healthy lifestyle and one that urges individuals to live a balanced life in mind, body, and spirit.

A variety of activities scheduled throughout the week are tailored to address body image issues that address young women and young men alike. For more information about Fat Talk Free Week, please contact CMS at (802) 264-5800 or e-mail guidance counselor Kara Pawlusiak at pawlusiakk@csdvt.org.

A great deal of other work is ongoing in acknowledgment of the strategic plan’s wellness pathway. For example, extensive work with CSD’s school health index is well under way, and every school in the district works hard to incorporate health and wellness-related curriculum and activities into its programming.

• Colchester High School and Colchester Police Department are collaborating to offer a three-part series to help support adolescents in our community, a CHS teacher was recently named the Vermont Health Teacher of the Year, and CHS’s research-based partnership, Project Checkpoint—a screening and brief intervention program designed to assist students with substance abuse issues—is attracting attention from surrounding school districts.
• Both Colchester Middle School and Malletts Bay School offer an international running program designed to incorporate age-appropriate discussions about such topics as tobacco and alcohol use, eating disorders, personal and Internet safety, and harassment. The program is designed to encourage positive emotional, social, and physical development, and it also introduces the participants to alternative, fun ways of engaging in physical activity, such as snowshoeing, hiking, and yoga. MBS also participated in a pilot program designed to study the effects of exercise on a variety of areas, including academic performance, concentration, cognitive function, and health measures, has been the recipient of the Fit and Healthy School Wellness Award, participates in walk-to-school events (click here for a fun video!), is piloting a sweets-free celebrations program, and much more.
• Wellness is an integral part of the day at Porters Point School. Along with its extensive student walking program and other such activities as walk-to-school events, the students participate in the Five-a-Day Healthy Snack Month; offer input into meal choices; and enthusiastically participate in the breakfast program, Jump Rope for Heart, and more. PPS has also hosted the Harlem Globetrotter’s CHEER for Character program. Additionally, PPS hosted a grant-funded, collaborative, family-based, multidisciplinary approach to nutrition and wellness aimed at addressing childhood obesity and childhood malnutrition called “In Shape and In Season” that was highly successful.
• Union Memorial School hosts an annual “Chilly Champ Fun Run” for students and families as well as an annual family ice skating event. UMS students helped to break a world record for jumping jacks as part of the 2011 Let’s Jump campaign, and as part of a unique UMS walking challenge program, one student walked more than fifty miles during his three years at the school.

CSD’s faculty and staff also make wellness a priority in their lives; dozens of CSD employees have participated in the KeyBank Vermont City Marathon and Relay, and employees regularly participate in other wellness-related activities, as well.

Team Tastykale finished second in the Masters Open category in the 100on100 Race in August. Pictured are CHS’s George Deane, Phil Gulizio, Morgan Samler, and Sean MacArdle, along with Danielle Grise, who ran with another team.

CSD’s wellness initiatives even extend into the greater Colchester community; CSD recently offered a successful, comprehensive wellness fair and community harvest dinner that was free and open to the public. And increasing numbers community members have participated in events like the annual Laker Cross-Country Fun Run, the Making Strides event, and the recent student-organized 5K Fun Run to benefit the Colchester Community Food Shelf.

For more information about CSD’s wellness initiatives, please contact Wellness Coordinator Jaycie Puttlitz at puttlitzj@csdvt.org, visit the district’s wellness blog, or contact any of your schools!

Your schools and your town are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!

As we discussed in our November 6 Spotlight article, Colchester High School and Colchester Police Department are collaborating to offer a three-part series to help support adolescents in our community. This event is open to all Colchester community members.

Please join us on Monday, November 18 at 7:00 p.m. in the CHS library for Part I of the series—aimed at helping parents to identify when teenagers are struggling and at risk of self-harm or suicide—entitled “Teenagers: Risk and Resilience.”

As a reminder this panel presentation of experts—including Dr. Lewis First; Dr. Eliot Nelson; Charlotte McCorkel MSW, LICSW; and Tina Bleau, MA, licensed psychologist—will share current research, best practices, and resources in our community and will provide the audience with a brief presentation followed by a question-and-answer session.

About the panel

Dr. Lewis First of WPTZ’s First With Kids is a professor and the chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, the chief of pediatrics at Vermont Children’s Hospital at Fletcher Allen Health Care, and the editor-in-chief of the American Academy of Pediatrics journal Pediatrics.

Dr. Eliot Nelson’s clinical focus is family-centered primary care, preventive pediatrics, and injury prevention. His care philosophy is to promote health, childhood development, mental well-being, and safety for all patients. He was recognized in 1990 by the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles with a Philip E. Rothman Memorial Award for excellence in pediatric resident education, guidance, and inspiration. He was also recognized in 2001 by Voices for Vermont’s Children (formerly the Vermont Children’s Forum) with a David Goldberg Child and Youth Advocacy Award; in 2002 by the American Academy of Pediatrics with a Special Achievement Award for work on firearm injury prevention through legislative efforts; and in 2010 by the American Academy of Pediatrics Vermont Chapter with the Green Mountain Pediatrician Award. Dr. Nelson also serves as a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Injury, Violence, and Poison Prevention, currently working as the council’s membership coordinator.

Charlotte McCorkel MSW, LICSW is the director of First Call for Children and Families at HowardCenter. First Call is a hotline service available to families and students who are experiencing a crisis.

Tina Bleau, MA, licensed psychologist works at the Northeastern Family Institute (NFI) Vermont (part of the North American Family Institute (NAFI) outpatient family center, which offers an array of services, including family-based therapy, evaluation, and training.

For more information, please call CHS at (802) 264-5700.

Your schools and your town are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!

Parent-teacher conferences are coming up!

Parent-teacher conferences are a really important opportunity for parents and teachers to forge partnerships in students’ education. They help to foster positive, ongoing communication with all stakeholders in our students’ academic experience, and research has repeatedly demonstrated that, when parents and community members are actively engaged with students’ education, the students reap significant benefits.

To get the most benefit from their conferences, we encourage parents to:

• write down in advance any questions or concerns that they may have;
• consider developing a plan with the teacher to facilitate the student’s learning; and
• feel free to take notes.

Porters Point School will hold parent-teacher conferences from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Monday, November 25 and from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on Tuesday, November 26. Parents are encouraged to call (802) 264-5920 to schedule an appointment.

Union Memorial School will hold parent-teacher conferences on Monday, November 25 from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and Tuesday, November 26 from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Parents are encouraged to call (802) 264-5959 to schedule an appointment.

Malletts Bay School will hold parent-teacher conferences on Monday, November 25 from 11:00 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Tuesday, November 26 from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Colchester Middle School will hold parent-teacher conferences Monday, November 25 from 12:00 to 8:00 p.m. and Tuesday, November 26 from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

To further facilitate scheduling conferences for parents, both Colchester Middle School and Malletts Bay School are using an online scheduler called PickAtime. Step-by-step instructions for using the system provided by CMS are available here. Using this system, parents can print off their schedules and/or receive the schedules via e-mail. Parents without access to the Internet or who would otherwise prefer to schedule parent-teacher conferences with CMS and/or MBS via telephone may of course do so; please call (802) 264-5802 to reach the CMS guidance office and/or (802) 264-5900 to reach the MBS main office.

Colchester High School will hold parent-teacher conferences from 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Monday, November 25 using a drop-in format (please note: the second floor will break for dinner from 4:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., and the first floor will break for dinner from 4:30–5:00 p.m.). For more specific information about the CHS parent-teacher conferences, please visit this issue of the Laker View.

Please note that parents are always welcome to contact their child’s school at any time to discuss any questions or concerns they may have—not just during parent-teacher conferences! We encourage, welcome, and value your partnerships at all times, as is affirmed in the Colchester School District Vision and Strategic Plan 2012–2017.

As a friendly reminder, parents of students in grades 6–12 can view their children’s grades online using our PowerSchool system.

Please also feel free to contact your child’s school with any questions or concerns.

Thank you for partnering with us!

Your schools and your town are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!

We have a moral responsibility to protect the earth and ensure that our children and grandchildren have a healthy and sustainable environment in which to live.
—Jim Clyburn

Your school district is committed to creatively and effectively addressing the daunting environmental challenges that affect each and every one of us, empowering students and citizens to bring about positive environmental change.

CHS student leaders and MBS students team up on a recycling project

As one recent example, Malletts Bay School fourth-grade students in Kari Carney’s class teamed up with Colchester High School students in a recycling and composting project. (Please click here to read an earlier Spotlight article about some of MBS’s other recycling efforts and environmental education.)

Fourth graders in Kari Carney’s class at the CHS “Big Trash Extravaganza” event

The Ospreys pitched in to help out with “the Big Trash Extravaganza” multiyear study by sorting and separating recyclable and compostable materials that had been collected in wastebaskets around CHS to be weighed and compared to data from past events and saved for comparison with next year’s data. (They later created eBooks about the experience and blogged about it on their classroom blogs; you can access the students’ blogs from Kari Carney’s classroom blog.) One of the anticipated outcomes of this project is the increased incorporation of sustainable practices into CHS’s culture and climate—much like CHS’s innovative, grant-funded sustainability project called Net Impact High School (please click here to read about Net Impact High School and why it is important). A bag’s worth of compostable material rescued from the trash receptacles went to a local resident, and returnable bottles were donated to a fundraiser. The event was the result of widespread collaboration among members of the Food: From Soil to Stomach class, maintenance personnel, science teachers, the physical education department, the art department, the food service personnel, the administration and office staff, a former CHS graduate volunteer, an educator from Chittenden Solid Waste District, and more. (To view more photographs from the project, please click here to visit CHS teacher Melanie Laquerre’s blog.)

CHS students Allison Pilcher, Casey LaBonte, and Sophia Simkis led the charge in the project

As another example, last year, Colchester Middle School’s student-led “green team” launched an extensive, multifaceted sustainability project (please click here to read more about it).

Incorporating conservation and environmental sustainability concepts into our academic environment is a fantastic way to promote a variety of benefits to our students. Becoming actively involved in facing real-world challenges encourages our students to become connected with their community and to become real-world problem solvers. They learn to work collaboratively with their peers to make quantifiable differences through careful consideration and innovative thinking.

And as we have discussed before, the district has numerous ongoing efforts in environmental responsibility and sustainability, including but not limited to:

• transitioning to eco-friendly cleaning products in our buildings before it was mandated by Vermont law on July 1, 2012
• replacing the Ford Taurus driver’s education vehicle with a new Toyota Prius—a hybrid vehicle that typically exceeds fifty miles per gallon—with funds received from an ARRA grant
• utilizing funds received through another grant to install more than eighty LED lamps throughout the parking lots at CHS, CMS, and MBS, resulting in an annual savings of fifty thousand (50,000) kilowatt hours and additional incentive dollars
• installing upgraded lighting at both PPS and UMS (in fact, CSD worked closely with Efficiency Vermont and various vendors to replace lighting in all schools with high-efficiency lighting, and the anticipated savings to the district were such that Efficiency Vermont covered the entire cost with incentives)
• installing three high-efficiency boilers resulting in annual cost savings replaced the aging boilers at CMS
• working closely with Chittenden Solid Waste District in order to increase recycling efforts
• winning a grant to support a human-powered generator capable of storing electricity to help offset some of the stage lighting, sound, and projection equipment’s power requirements

CHS staff and students and Berlin City’s Dedrick Casab

We’re all in this together!

For more information about sustainability efforts in your school district, please contact any of your schools.

Your schools and your town are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!

The Burnham Memorial Library’s Young Adult Advisory Board (YA Board) works in cooperation with the Rotary Club of Colchester-Milton on its annual holiday basket project. While Rotarians collect food and other essentials for approximately 250 local families, the YA Board collects books for the children and teens in each family. The goal is to ensure that all children and teenagers on the list can feed their minds with something good to read.

The Burnham Memorial Library is collecting new or like-new books to support this effort until December 9; the drop box is across from the adult circulation desk in the library. Drop boxes are also available at Malletts Bay School, Colchester Middle School, and Colchester High School.

Encouraging literacy is paramount. To learn more about Colchester School District’s literacy programs, please click here for our five-part primer. And to learn more about emergent literacy, please click here.

Your schools and your town government are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!

Thanksgiving, after all, is a word of action.
—W. J. Cameron

CHS Cares with the Thanksgiving food drive supplies

Colchester High School’s CHS Cares coordinated its annual effort to provide complete Thanksgiving dinners for twenty-five families in need in Colchester.

Colchester Middle School (check out their new website!) has also been coordinating a holiday food drive.

These are still more meaningful examples of ongoing student volunteerism in our community.

Many, many thanks to everyone who generously contributed food and monetary donations to the effort, and special thanks to Price Chopper for donating sixteen turkeys to support this year’s cause!

Colchester School District wishes everyone a very safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Your schools and your town government are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!

As we announced in the December 2013 issue of Currently Colchester, we introduce CHS senior Teremy Garen, the Colchester School Board’s newly appointed student representative.

CHS senior Teremy Garen has been appointed to the Colchester School Board. (Photo credit: Amy Guidice)

As a non-voting member of the school board, Teremy’s responsibilities include attending school board meetings in order to liaise between voting school board members and the student body. “Part of my role is to be available—to be present—everywhere I can possibly be to hear opinions and perspectives on different things,” she said. “As a student, I have an insider’s view into how students are being affected by policies created by the school board.”

Inspired by former student school board member Jordan Isham’s involvement last year, Teremy is looking forward to the opportunity to augment student participation in the process. “It’s important to make not only my opinion heard but also the opinions of everyone else,” she said. “Expressing opinions is difficult for a lot of people; the age factor is a barrier … there is sometimes a feeling among students that, because you’re seventeen, your opinions are not quite as valued.”

In addition to connecting with CHS Student Government to solicit input and to help disseminate information, part of Teremy’s strategy for keeping her peers informed of school board-related activities and decisions that affect policy involves widespread social media. In preparing for effective participation in school board business, Teremy plans to speak with the school board members and the CSD principals in order to acquire additional input. Having attended a number of school board meetings in the past, she is also catching up on Lake Champlain Access Television (LCATV) recordings of school board meetings in order to gain a better sense of parliamentary procedure and the general manner in which school board business is typically conducted. She also plans to connect with former student school board member Jordan Isham for the benefit of his perspective and insight.

A talented vocalist (hear her singing the national anthem in this video), Teremy has participated in twelve selective choral festivals and ten theater productions to date during her high school career, and she also plays guitar, clarinet, and piano. Additionally, she recently participated in the 2013 American Legion Auxiliary Green Mountain Girls State program (the same program in which former CHS student Hanna Orselet participated which ultimately landed her a meeting with President Barack Obama).

Teremy invites the Colchester community to contact her via her Colchester School District e-mail address (teremy.garen@colchestersd.org) or via her Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/teremylee).

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Did you know that Alan Greenspan, Condoleezza Rice, Paula Zahn, Woody Allen, and a host of others credit their musical education for their notable professional successes?

It’s all here in a recent New York Times article, which heralds that “multiple studies link music study to academic achievement.” And in past Spotlight articles, we, too, have shared a number of academic, cognitive, and psychosocial benefits directly attributed to music education and musical performance.

And did you know that Colchester High School band program has enjoyed a more than 50 percent increase in participation this year alone, largely due to great feeder programs and interest from older, first-time students?

“Our feeder programs at Colchester Middle School and Malletts Bay School are doing a tremendous job of indoctrinating students into music education,” CHS band director Evan Peltier said. “Emily Desautels and Bridgette Tozzi at the middle school and Sheila Clark at MBS do phenomenal work. And we’ve had a significant number of students approach us late in their high school careers to express interest in getting involved with the band program, which is really exciting.”

The Colchester High School Jubilee Winter Concert will be held on Wednesday, December 11 at 7:00 p.m. in the community theater at CHS, featuring the CHS concert and jazz bands as well as several choral ensembles, including a first-ever all-male ensemble.

The Colchester Middle School Holiday Choir Concert will be held on Thursday, December 12 at 7:00 p.m., also in the community theater at CHS.

Colchester Middle School band will also hold a band holiday concert on Thursday, December 19 at 7:00 p.m. in the CMS gymnasium, featuring the CMS sixth-grade band, the seventh- and eighth-grade band, and the jazz band.

The concerts are free and open to the public!

Among some of the efforts to raise funds for the eagerly anticipated upcoming April 25–27 trip to New York City—which has become something of a tradition at CHS—the CHS music department is coordinating two caroling events and a Lake Champlain Access Television (LCATV) telethon.

On Saturday, December 14 from 11:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., CHS instrumentalists will carol in front of Kiss the Cook at 72 Church Street in Burlington.

On Saturday, December 21 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., vocalists will carol in front of Kiss the Cook at 72 Church Street in Burlington.

On Sunday, December 15, a variety of small ensembles will perform on LCATV from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. as part of a first-ever telethon event!

“This telethon is the first time we’ve tried doing something like this … we hope viewers will enjoy the music performances and be in the giving spirit,” said CHS Director of Bands Evan Peltier. “But no matter how much we raise, it will be a great experience for the students to play on live television.” Interested? LCATV is viewable on Comcast Cable Channels 15 and 16 in Colchester, Milton, Georgia, Fairfax, Westford, South Hero, Grand Isle and North Hero; volunteers will be stationed at CHS during the telethon to take phone calls and pledges from telethon donors.

During the April trip, more than one hundred CHS students will tour the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the 9/11 Memorial, Chinatown, Little Italy, Ellis Island, and other historically significant sites, enjoy a dinner cruise around the Statue of Liberty, experience the Broadway musical Newsies, and more.

Perhaps best of all, on Saturday, April 26, the students will perform as part of the WorldStrides Heritage Performance’s New York City Music Festival along with bands and choruses from all over the country, challenging them to collaborate and perform to their fullest potential in the midst of a rigorous competition.

All of it is aligned with the Colchester School District’s Vision and Strategic Plan 2012–2017′s efforts to offer “High Standards, Expectations, and Individual Engagement for All Learners,” “Learning Outside Our Four Walls,” and “Parent, Community, and School Partnerships Among Lifelong Learners.”

If you would like more information, please contact CHS’s Evan Peltier at peltiere@csdvt.org or CHS’s Melissa Towle at towlem@csdvt.org or call (802) 264-5700.

Your schools and your town government are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!

There is a lot about Colchester that makes its community proud. (If you missed our recent video offering some wonderful examples, please click here.)

And now we are heading into winter … how about a warm-and-fuzzy, feel-good story?

At Colchester Middle School, teacher Amy Kreiger’s knitting club—one of many teacher-directed clubs at CMS—has been increasing in popularity since its creation. What’s particularly neat about this program is that the students involved—among other things—make and donate little hats for the Vermont Children’s Hospital at Fletcher Allen Health Care.

CMS students made these tiny hats for newborns at Vermont Children’s Hospital

A newborn at Vermont Children’s Hospital wears a knitted hat!

Click here to watch a fun video of the knitters in action!

“Maintaining a normal body temperature in ill or premature infants is always a priority,” said Barbara Henle with the Vermont Children’s Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). “The members of this population are extremely vulnerable and less able to maintain their body temperatures than are healthy and/or term infants. In addition to keeping them in special, environmentally controlled infant beds, we rely on the use of hats to help keep these infants warm. The hats are also very cute and often help lend a sense of normalcy to the whole experience for parents. Because each hat is a gift to the family that they will take home with them when the baby goes home, we always need a new supply—and donations are greatly appreciated and treasured by the families that get to keep them. On behalf of the staff, families, and especially babies of the NICU at Vermont Children’s Hospital, we thank you!”

(If you would like more information, or if you would like to donate knitting supplies, please e-mail Amy Kreiger.)

As we’ve mentioned before, when our community members benefit from our students’ substantial efforts, they are more likely to support our students … and when our students feel supported, they are more likely to give back to their community. The entire community benefits when everyone commits to making ongoing positive contributions. There is a diverse and plentiful assortment of benefits associated with volunteerism, particularly among young people, and incorporating it into curriculum is a powerful way to introduce it in a way that allows students to see how their efforts can make a difference in their communities. Students in every school in the district regularly step up to contribute to our community’s greater good. Just a tiny sample of these contributions are as follows:

• Union Memorial School students recently partnered with Tuberville to raise and harvest potatoes for the Colchester Community Food Shelf (click here to learn more and to watch a fun video).

• A Porters Point School student raised funds to support local animal agencies.

• A group of Malletts Bay School students raised more than $1,515 for cancer research.

• CHS Cares champions an annual Thanksgiving food drive and offers ongoing community support by participating in activities like preparing dinner for guests of the Hope Lodge.

• Every school in the district rolled up its sleeves to help our neighbors all across our state in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene.

Happy Holidays!

Your schools and your town are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!

Colchester High School’s “Hour of Code” proposal was selected as the Vermont winner … and earned CHS $10,000 to purchase technology for use in its classrooms.

CHS science team leader Will Warren and math educator Tara Sharkey spearheaded the initiative in which the entire school participated in learning code for one hour as part of an international program called the “Hour of Code.” A kickoff event and award ceremony held on December 9 included Vermont Agency of Education’s Secretary Armando Vilaseca and was attended by Superintendent Larry Waters, members of the Colchester School Board, and many others. A check for $10,000 was presented at the ceremony, which will facilitate the purchase of nineteen new laptops for CHS.

To view a video of the kickoff ceremony and some of the coding that CHS students did during the event, please click here.

The event coincided with Computer Science Education Week, running December 9–15. “Using technology is a necessity for all of us, especially our students,” said Secretary of Education Vilaseca. “This weeklong event provides our students and our schools an opportunity to showcase their talents and their work.” (To read the VT AOE’s press release about it, please click here.)

Why is computer science important?

Computer science is evident everywhere—not only in formal disciplines like engineering, medicine, biology, and business management but also in everyday life … mobile phones, financial transactions, televisions, vehicles … it is ubiquitous. As such, there is an immensely strong practical relevance for studying it. And yet computer science is only taught in approximately 10 percent of US schools, and most students never try it. Computer science skills—required for the creation and development of advanced technologies and applications and to optimally use the ones we already have—are paramount.

The Colchester School District Vision and Strategic Plan 2012–2017 includes a pathway entitled “Technology Infrastructure and Integration,” and we are taking it seriously and working very hard to increasingly work toward this pathway.

To view WCAX’s coverage of the December 9 event and how it relates to statewide educational initiatives, please click here.

To view Fox 44′s coverage, please click here.

Congratulations, Colchester High School!

Your schools and your town government are working hard to engage our community. Please encourage your friends and family to subscribe to The Spotlight. When we’re all informed, we make a stronger community!