March 8, 2024
Dear BSD Community,
On Tuesday, our budget for next year passed by more than 71%! I hope you will join me in thanking everyone who came out to vote and thanking our District leaders and School Board for all the hard work that went into preparing for this year’s vote. This year we worked hard to prioritize the continuity of robust programming and staffing. This, combined with paying for the new high school and technical center, necessitated us putting forward what was essentially a level-funded service budget. For future budgets, we will likely continue to see modest investments in our strategic priorities, balanced with staffing decisions aligned to our enrollment. Thankfully, due in large part to the great advocacy and coalition-building of our school board, the state enacted new legislation called ACT 127 that equitably funds districts. This shift in funding is really important for us now and will be in future budgets, and should allow us to keep robust programming and staffing to support our students.
Town Meeting Day also provided an opportunity for many of our teachers to continue their anti-racist teaching journeys through professional learning. Educators attended sessions on Unpacking Whiteness in Racial Affinity, Co-Teaching as an Antiracist Strategy, and Restorative Re-entry. As a District, we are committed to continuing to unpack the ways in which systemic racism negatively impacts our community and to doing everything in our power to continue to shift this reality. I believe this is central to providing the best education for all of our students and I see us growing and evolving in my visits to schools and classrooms across the District.
Finally, congratulations are due to our SeaLakers! Our Co-op girls hockey team, a partnership with Colchester High School, got it done last night! The team defeated #1 BFA-St. Albans 3-2 to claim the D1 State Championship, its first in the history of the 10-year cooperative program! After being swept during the regular season by the Comets, the third time was the charm. It was the team’s fourth championship game appearance in the past five years. Congratulations SeaLakers!!
Thanks again for your continued support,
Tom
We are Hiring! Join our team of dedicated School Nutrition Professionals and contribute to the school community in a meaningful way. Burlington School Food Project is looking for help with the preparation and serving of school meals. This is a great opportunity to be part of your students’ school day since schedules are flexible and follow the school calendar. Please apply today!
Calendar – We are finalizing our calendar for next year and plan to bring it to the board this Tuesday. For the first time, the CVSA has developed a regional calendar instead of doing it by county. This will help us align our calendars and better coordinate across the region. It is also very important, and state law, for our tech centers that we have 175 common school days across the region to offer the full academic program. As a result, this year, there is very little opportunity for local decisions as we have committed as a region to much of the calendar already. The biggest changes that are included in this regional calendar are:
- The first in-service day will be August 20th, with new staff orientation on August 19th.
- To recognize the days when many families are off for cultural and religious holidays, Yom Kippur, Diwali, and Eid are common days off next year.
- Due to the additional holidays, districts in our region committed to August 26th as the first day for students.
- Many districts have traditionally been in school on Indigenous Peoples Day, at the request of the Missisquoi people, to recognize and celebrate the day; we will be part of the regional decision to be in session.
- There is not a common day off in March after Town Meeting Day, so, in alignment with many of our regional districts we will hold spring conferences on March 4.
- The last day of school will be on or about June 12, 2025, depending on school closures.
Half-day April 8! As you know, because of the eclipse, April 8th is an early release day for students. Please be aware that travel may be tricky as Burlington is planning for several road closures; we will be working with DPW to discuss what these closures mean for our students and staff. If the city will indeed be impassable, we may need to reconsider our plans for the day.
Eclipse Glasses and Resources – Keeping on the eclipse topic, thanks to ECHO, Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, we will be distributing glasses to every student and staff person throughout the District. The Office of Teaching and Learning has also pulled together a number of resources for both educators and families to use… check it out!
Math Counts Champs! The EMS Mathcounts team won first place last weekend at the Mathcounts chapter competition! They competed against nearly a dozen other schools from the area, and their win allows them to go to the States competition in March. Of note:
- EMS swept every category: Individual, Team, and the Countdown round.
- Xavier “Tank” Chandler (8th grade) won both the Individual and Countdown rounds, and competed on the four-person team.
- During the Countdown Round, which tests the 12 top competitors, four of the students were from EMS.
- EMS had a very strong showing of girls participating in this competition; 3 of the 4 members of the EMS Team are girls. (The team was Tank Chandler, Maelyn Slavik, Britta Fitzgerald and Bernadette Caldwell.)
Other participants, who competed as individuals, were Joaquin Chandler, Aidan Williamson, Zia Grannis, Maddie Stanton-Geddes, and Lola Cruz.
Buy a Bag, Support Burlington School Food Project – BSFP has been selected again by the Store Leadership Team as a Hannaford Fight Hunger Bag Program Nonprofit Partner! We will receive $1 for each $2.50 reusable Fight Hunger Bag sold during the month of April 2024 at 1127 North Ave, Burlington VT. Thank you Hannaford!
FACILITIES UPDATES
IAA Renovation Update – On February 20th, we presented a project update and I recommended the board approve the use of the resources available from our 2017 10-Year Capital Plan funding to complete this project. They unanimously agreed. We had originally planned a smaller renovation project, focused primarily on using the $10m in ESSER funds to make HVAC upgrades. However, we know the level of investment needed at IAA is substantial and will only continue to grow if we do not take bold action now. In addition, because we already have alternate locations identified for schooling next year, it makes the most sense, and is most cost-effective, to do as much work as we can next year. This is why we decided to use what is essentially the remainder of our Capital Plan funding for this project. We are comfortable with this because all of our other schools have benefitted from renovations of some kind in the past decade, and IAA has the most need now.
BTC at the Airport – We have been negotiating the finer points of our lease with the airport and this process, along with legal review, is now complete. One key feature of this lease is the 40 year term, which will provide incredible stability for the program. Another key feature is a favorable rent arrangement that provides credit to BSD for the investments that we are making in the project, thereby reducing the actual annual rent that we must pay in cash. The next step is for the school board to grant authorization to enter into the lease. This action is scheduled for the March 12 meeting.
BHS/BTC
Time Lapse Thanks to our partners at Whiting-Turner, you can get up close to the BHS/BTC project.
Check out the incredible time-lapse and watch as the building rises from the ground on our quest to bring Burlington the school our students and community deserve. Questions about the project? Visit our project page to learn more about this transformational project in Vermont’s Queen City!
Demo Building E demolition of slabs/foundations and soil removal is anticipated to be completed the first week of March; turnover of the area is being coordinated with Whiting-Turner. Building F abatement is complete and the superstructure was almost all the way down on Town Meeting Day. The target completion date for all building demo and abatement and soil remediation is still late March. The one building standing with the solar panels on the roof is the wood chip plant; That building is staying and will be used for maintenance storage.
Construction Whiting Turner’s (WT) ongoing site/building construction activities include:
- Ledge blasting and export.
- Waterproofing lower-level foundation walls.
- Backfill lower level foundations.
- Installation of lower level underslab plumbing and electrical.
- Form, reinforce, pour Level 1 foundations.
- Installation of ground improvements.
FF&E Over the next few weeks and months, the design team will be working with district and BHS/BTC leadership to: 1) review types/specifications for furniture, fixture, and equipment (FF&E), and 2) finalize interior colors and patterns.
EVENTS
Upcoming Equity Workshop: Neurodivergence; Celebrating Unique Minds – Wednesday, March 20, 6-7 pm via Google Meet or in person at the Integrated Arts Academy Library – Instead of focusing on problems and deficits, this workshop will focus on neurodivergence as a strength. We will review terms and definitions and share tools for educators and families to support students on the autism spectrum. This workshop will be co-facilitated by BSD Equity Instructional Leader Autumn Bangoura and BHS alumni and Disability Advocate Eva Edwards-Stoll.
Coffee with Tom – March 29th, 8 AM at Nunyuns Ask questions and provide feedback about the work happening in BSD. I will come prepared to give a few updates, but mostly be ready to engage in conversation. Come late, leave early, or stay the whole time – either way, coffee is on us! Can’t make it? Feel free to join us on April 19 or May 31.
