April 8, 2022
Dear BSD Community,
I’m excited to let you know that on Tuesday night members of the BHS/BTC 2025 Design Team presented five conceptual design options to the Burlington Board of School Commissioners, which you can view on our website. I would like to invite you to attend a Public Forum on Tuesday, April 12 at 6 PM to learn more about these options and provide feedback. This will be a hybrid meeting, attendees can join us on Zoom or in-person in the library at DtBHS. We will give a presentation similar to Tuesday’s and take questions, and those who join us in person will have a chance to break into small groups to connect with members of the design team and provide feedback. In preparation for that, or if you cannot make it, you can also find a number of helpful documents and presentations below, including our Conceptual Design Feedback Survey.
As I noted on Tuesday, we’ve gotten to this process by being disciplined about sticking to a project plan and timeline. At the same time, we’ve been actively engaging with our community. We have held a public forum, spoken with BHS and BTC staff, met with students, food services staff and families to get their feedback. We also have a Design Steering Committee with about 25 stakeholders that has helped us make programmatic decisions. Additionally, the team has drawn on past experiences, with so many members having gone through this process with the last ReEnvisioning project and even before. All of this is part of the engagement plan that we planned this fall and I feel grateful for the level of input, engagement, and progress that has set the foundation for us to move forward to the next phase of the project. Thank you!
Thanks for taking the time to read through this and for being engaged in the process.
In partnership,
Tom
P.S. We received an outpouring of support and encouragement after our message last night. Thank you for your deep support for our leaders (both adults and students) in the LGBTQ+ community in BSD!
BHS/BTC 2025 Supporting Documents –
BHS/BTC 2025 Conceptual Designs Announcement
Conceptual Designs Presentation to Steering Committee
Recording of Board Presentation (begins at around 22 minutes)
Last Day of School – Barring any additional unforeseen circumstances, our new last day for students will be June 10. BHS and BTC will message the specifics of the last days of school to their communities soon. As a reminder, the last day of school will be a half-day, as usual.
2022-2023 Calendar – Next year’s school calendar was approved by the Burlington Board of School Commissioners at Tuesday night’s meeting. Our first student day will be August 31st, in alignment with the other districts in our region.
New Board Members – Please join me in thanking Mike Fisher, Stephen Carey and Aden Haji for their dedication to serving BSD and our students. We are grateful for your tireless work and advocacy! Thank you too to Aquilas Lokossou (alokossou@bsdvt.org), Lucia Campriello (lcampriello@bsdvt.org), Saja Almogalli (salmogalli@bsdvt.org), and Faizo Hassan (fhassan@bsdvt.org) who have stepped into these roles on the board. We are so fortunate to have your perspective and experience on our board, and we know you will serve our students and community well!
BHS Tours – The BHS team will be hosting a tour night on April 14th from 5-7pm! Parking is free for the first two hours in the parking garage between Downtown Burlington High School and Hotel Vermont. If you are interested in visiting Downtown Burlington High School on Thursday, April 14th, please register as soon as you can; note that when the form asks for a quantity, this refers to the number of incoming students within your family, not the number of people within your party. This will be the last tour night hosted this school year with additional tours offered throughout the summer. Please stay tuned for more information. We welcome students and families to attend this event!
COVID Alerts – In our new COVID procedures published last month, we noted that Close Contact Notification would be going away in BSD on April 1. As you likely know, we have continued through that deadline and as of right now we plan to continue sending these for the time being. Our team will be meeting next week to decide when and if we will cease the daily contact notifications.
Recovery Plan – Last week we posted our Public Plan for ARP ESSER Spending on our recovery plan website and submitted our ESSER III application to the Agency of Education. The AOE has acknowledged that we have submitted what they need, though the application is subject to change after review, meaning we may need to revise it based on feedback before it is approved. We will also be able to revise it between when it’s approved and 9/30/2024, as plans are refined. Our total allocation for this round is $13,791,866. Of this, we have earmarked $10M to support BHS/BTC 2025, with the remainder directed to address learning disruptions from the pandemic through items such as literacy materials and professional learning. Funds can be spent until Sept 30, 2024.
Ramadan at EMS – In preparation for Ramadan, which began earlier this month, EMS has spent time with their community to create plans and spaces to support fasting and prayer. Please check out this flyer for more information. Thank you to the EMS team for this important work.
Athletics – We had another banner season this winter. Congratulations to these student-athletes for their postseason honors:
- Girls Basketball: Nylah Mitchell (‘25): Vermont Basketball Coaches Association (VBCA) Dream Dozen (Top-12 non-senior) in Divisions 1 & 2, VBCA All-Metro Division Second Team and Burlington Free Press All-State Honorable Mention; Bree McDonald (‘25): VBCA All-Metro Division Second Team
- Girls Hockey: Mershon Sky (‘22): Girls Hockey Rotary All-Star; Tier 1 Academic All-Star (3.5 or higher GPA); Paige Moody (‘22): Girls Hockey Rotary All-Star
- Boys Hockey: Cannon Poulin (‘23): Boys Hockey Division 2 Honorable Mention and Burlington Free Press All-State Honorable Mention; Steven LaBombard (‘23): Boys Hockey Division 2 Honorable Mention
- Girls Nordic: Division 1 1st Team All-State & Back-to-Back State Champs – Rosalie Brown (‘23), Rebecca Cunningham (‘22), Gillian Fairfax (‘24), Maeve Fairfax (‘22), Greta Kilburn (‘23), Elsa Sanborn (‘24)
- Boys Nordic: Division 1 1st Team All-State – Kai Donnelly (‘23), Nico Hochanadel (‘23); Honorable Mention – Sam Weber (‘22)
- Boys Basketball: Amari Fraser (‘22): VBCA All-Metro Division Honorable Mention
Congrats BTC! Congratulations BTC Culinary Arts Students Luke Van Marter Brown and Ana Fleming! Luke won first place and Ana third in the Culinary Institute of America ProStart Gourmet Burger Challenge in Hyde Park NY today! Chef N provided wonderful coaching and Luke and Ana did a tremendous job and put in a ton of practice to claim their recognition. We are so proud of how Luke and Ana represented themselves as professionals and as BTC students!
Student Achievement – And All 2nd-year Culinary Arts students have earned the Certified Customer Experience Professional certification from CSIA (this is in addition to ServSafe Food Handler certification). Hopefully, by the end of the 21-22 school year they will have 10 college credits to go with the credentials.
BTC Earns Mini-monies Award – Congratulations to the BTC Culinary Arts Program for being selected to receive a $7,500 Mini-monies Award. This mini-monies program is a part of the Community Navigator Pilot Program and the Vermont Principals’ Association (VPA). The mini-monies were made possible in part by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Junior Iron Chef – On Saturday, April 2nd BSD afterschool students participated in the statewide Junior Iron Chef competition. Each team did a fantastic job! Four BSD teams competed, including the EMS Charismatic Crepes and Funky Fritters, coached by Jen Tranpani, the HMS Whisks and Rewards team, coached by Cheryl Niedzwiecki that brought home the Crowd Pleaser award and the BHS Turnip the Heat, Get With the Beet team also coached by Cheryl, who won the Lively Local award. A huge congratulations to all of the teams!! Check out the WCAX story to learn more about the competition: Junior Iron Chef Vermont returns after 2-year hiatus
HMS Whisks and Rewards team
BHS Turnip the Heat, Get With the Beet team
COVID CASES
3/23 9
3/24 5
3/25 3
3/28 17
3/29 3
3/30 9
3/31 6
4/1 7
4/4 9 – Smith (3), Champlain (2), EES, HMS, BHS, BTC
4/5 6 – Smith, Flynn (2), IAA, EMS, EES
4/6 3 – Smith (2), EES
4/7 11 – Flynn (3), IAA (2), EES (2), HMS, BHS, BTC (2)
4/8 9 – Smith (2), Champlain, IAA (2), EES (2), EMS, HMS
