August 26, 2026
Dear BSD Community,
Welcome back! I hope you had an amazing summer and you are excited about the upcoming school year. I am feeling great going into the school year, especially coming off of Saturday’s Grand Opening and Block Party for BHS and BTC. Around 1,000 people came out to celebrate, and the positive energy could be felt throughout the city. Thank you to everyone who joined us on Saturday and supported this project for the past six years.
On Monday, our new space allowed our entire BSD staff to come together in one place under one roof for the first time since I have been superintendent! I shared with our team that I’m really grateful to live in a place so committed to its public schools. It took the work of the entire community to get us into a new school, and I’ve been thinking about how important teamwork will be for our work ahead as well. Working as a team will be a major focus for our staff this year as we strive to serve every student well in BSD!
Working together as a team includes our families and community partners too. We always appreciate your support and engagement; it’s a core part of our students’ success. A great first step is making sure your returning student registration forms are complete. Please also consider downloading the ParentSquare app we are using to help improve our communication and collaboration. We are also looking for feedback as we begin developing our next strategic plan, and we’d love to see you at our annual collaboration with The Flynn, “Playing Fields” on September 15th. You can read more on each of these things, and more, below.
Go Team! Have a great year.
Tom
Playing Fields – Join us on September 15th at 6:00pm for the Playing Fields Project at Flynn Elementary School. This free back-to-school celebration is presented by The Flynn and BSD. Bring your friends and family for an awe-inspiring evening of large-scale puppetry, featuring Sea Fantasy – The Pearl, created by Plasticiens Volants, an exciting and dynamic street theater troupe from France. This is our fifth year working with The Flynn to bring amazing shows to our community for free… you won’t want to miss this!
Drill Schedule and Purpose – As part of our continued work to keep schools safe, and as required by the State of Vermont, schools will once again be practicing a variety of emergency drills this year. BSD is using a districtwide approach to drills by practicing them during the same week at every school. A copy of the District Drill Schedule is linked here and includes
- Fire and evacuation drills where the whole community exits the school.
- Relocation drills, where everyone leaves the building and moves to an established relocation space.
- Situational awareness discussions which involve our options-based response (Run, Hide, Fight) to an active threat.
Options-based responses to active threats are designed to empower staff and students with options during an active threat. Our first options-based drill will be a discussion during the week of September 14. These conversations will be both grade- and age-appropriate. The practice will begin with an intercom announcement and move into a discussion about how to stay safe. The discussions are designed to be as low-stress as possible for both adults and students. We believe that having teachers review this information is the most appropriate way to introduce this information to students.
Updated Code of Conduct and One-pager – The Code of Conduct undergoes an annual revision every year, and this year’s revisions are complete. All changes can be found here. A one-pager of the Code of Conduct is also now available.
ParentSquare: BSD’s New Communication Tool – BSD is happy to announce that we are now using ParentSquare! ParentSquare is a communication platform designed to keep you informed and engaged with your child’s education. With ParentSquare, you’ll receive all school and classroom messages in one place, translated into your preferred language. You’ll also be able to:
- Stay up to date on news and events
- Send and receive messages with teachers and staff
- Sign up for conferences and volunteer opportunities
- View calendar items and photos from your school
You can choose how you receive updates—whether it’s by phone, text, or email. There is also an option to create an account and download the ParentSquare app, which allows you to see all alerts, newsletters, and calendars in one convenient place. Creating an account is completely optional; you will still receive all essential communications even if you choose not to create an account. If you’d like to create an account, please follow the instructions sent in email on August 24th.
Empathy Interviews and the Development of our Next 5-Year Strategic Plan – We are in the last year of our strategic plan and are launching the development of our next 5-year plan! As part of this process, a team of students, caregivers, staff, and community members, known as the guiding coalition, will be working alongside BSD leaders to develop the next plan. This group will be leading empathy interviews with members of our community. If you are asked to participate in one of these interviews, I encourage you to accept, as this is an opportunity for the broader BSD community to share what is going well and where we need to improve, shift, and grow. For any questions about these interviews, the strategic planning process, or how to be involved in the guiding coalition, feel free to reach out to Victor Prussack, Director of Engagement: vprussac@bsdvt.org or 802-316-6653.
Assessments – This year, BSD will use Renaissance Star Assessments for literacy and math assessments for all students grades K-11. Renaissance Star Assessments will be used as our state-mandated universal screener and as a progress monitoring tool. Universal screeners and progress monitoring tools are both vital components of a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS), which is a priority for us to strengthen in BSD in order to meet the needs of our students.
Renaissance Star replaces Literably at the elementary level and replaces IXL Level Up Assessment at the secondary level. The tool provides fast (~20-minute), computer-adaptive testing that reliably measures math, reading, and early literacy skills. It generates immediate, actionable data to identify students who may be at risk, set data-driven intervention goals, and track academic growth over time.
K-1 Foundational Literacy Updates – This summer, a group of PreK-Grade 2 educators came together to strengthen our literacy program and instructional practices. The workgroup reviewed feedback from BSD teachers, student achievement data (Literably and IRLA), and recommendations from the Stern Center regarding the American Reading Company (ARC) program foundational literacy block. The workgroup also reviewed commonly used supplemental material from UFLI and the Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Curriculum to identify the strengths and limitations of each program. Using all of this information, the team worked to identify components of a highly effective literacy block and then worked to revise and supplement ARC’s Foundational Block. The plan is to share this work with K-1 teaching teams over the fall, to review changes and explore new resources together so that we can continue to strengthen early literacy.
Act 139 – Act 139 is Vermont’s most comprehensive literacy legislation to date. The law mandates universal screening for all students grade K-3 and also dictates next steps for intervention and caregiver communication. Renaissance STAR assessments will support us in this work. While Act 139 most directly impacts our early elementary educators, we are sharing this information with all so that we have greater awareness of the efforts happening across our district. You can learn more about Act 139 through this short video: Act 139: Vermont’s Literacy Initiative.
Returning Student Registration – We need your help to make sure all student info is up to date! Only 59% of forms have been completed, with Smith families leading the way with a 64% completion rate. Please help us get to 100% by completing these forms in the PowerSchool Parent Portal today.
UPDATED POLICIES
English Learners (C4)
Alcohol and Drug-Free Workplace (B3)
Drug & Alcohol Testing: Transportation Employees (B4)
Cell Phone Use by Students (C16)
UPDATED PROCEDURES
BSD Building Access Control and Visitor Management Procedure
Hate Speech Procedure
Student Conduct and Discipline Procedure
Support of Students with a Detained Parent
Class Size Procedure (This was approved in April and shared at a board meeting, but wasn’t shared with all staff… apologies!)
Cell Phone Procedure
