We joined BCEMS Art Teacher Eirene Mavodones and Barre City parent and artist Amber Charbonneau in their weekly after school Art Club with a group of 8th graders.  At the height of the pandemic, Ms. Mavodones was concerned that too many of our students were missing out on opportunities to socialize and connect with their friends in shared interests.  So, she and Amber did something about it!  The BCEMS Art Club has been a joy for students on Friday afternoons for nearly two years now, and you can hear the experiences of some of our 8th graders.

For this week's showcase, we joined SHS J.R.O.T.C. Teacher Sgt. Danny Boone and his cadets.  This showcase really speaks for itself, but I want to recognize SHS Senior Ian Longfellow who has just found out that he has been nominated by Senator Leahy for an appointment to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point.

We welcome you to The Gallery at Barre Town Middle and Elementary School!  BTMES Art Teacher Anne Leeds and Design Lab Teacher Michael Pope have worked with students across the elementary and middle schools to create a peaceful place in their community that has had a positive impact on everyone at Barre Town for many years.  Please take a look at what the two of them and some of their students have to say about The Gallery.

We didn't want to wait until next week to celebrate the start of the fall SHS playoff season, because it will already be underway as you read this!   Our Crimson Tide teams have had an exciting fall season, and the playoff rounds are beginning this afternoon with our girls' soccer team playing Enosburg at the Barre Town Rec Field.  SHS Athletic Director Derek Cipriano and I had a chance to catch up with all of the team captains and some of their teammates this afternoon, and they shared some highlights of their season and what we can look forward to in the days and weeks ahead.

I was able to join BCEMS Social Studies teacher Missy Wiggins' 7th graders last week for a fun lesson in her Ancient Civilization class.  "Student Engagement'' is a key objective of our Strategic Plan, and it was great to see the kids using technology and engage in collaborative teamwork in their learning.  Most of us will remember learning long vocabulary lists when we were students, but what you will see here is a perfect example of a traditional lesson made better with simple but creative and engaging methods.  Ms. Wiggins made a vocabulary lesson come alive with an engaging and fun experience for her students, and the kids were all eager to share their work with us! 

This week's Showcase brings us for a return visit to the SEA Program!  "SEA" stands for Spaulding Educational Alternatives, and the program is in the middle of its second year in our new location.  Located on Allen Street in Barre City, SEA provides an alternative opportunity to access high school for up to 60 of our students, and the program is off to an impressive and successful start.  We met with SEA teachers Stephen Kelley and Cliff Thompson along with some of their students yesterday in East Montpelier with the Vermont Youth Conservation Corp, and it was a great visit.

Last night, the BTMES and BCEMS middle school boys and girls soccer teams combined for a spirited game under the lights at Pendo Field on the Spaulding campus.  It was a lot of fun for all the athletes and the big audience that came to cheer them on!  BUUSD Athletic Directors Jodi Bushway (BCEMS), Jack Carrier (BTMES), and Derek Cipriano (SHS) joined forces with the BYSA to put on this event.  Any opportunity to bring our school communities together is always welcome, and I want to thank all who made this event possible!  What an incredibly fun way to spend a Wednesday night!

Earlier today, I visited BTMES 4th grade ELA teacher Mackenzie Rice's classroom.  Miss Rice is a 2022 graduate of St. Michael's College, and this is her first teaching position.  I have observed and visited many classrooms over the last 30 plus years, and you would never know that this person is so new to teaching after spending time with her and these 4th graders!

A group of about 40 SHS Juniors and Seniors had a great experience attending the Fall College Fair at St. Michael's College yesterday!  SHS Work Based Learning Coordinator Michelle LaFrancis leads this trip annually, and according to Michelle, "WBL programming provides opportunities for students to participate in a series of college visits to determine where they can get the education, experience, and training needed to meet their professional goals while experiencing various college campuses."  This was an exciting eye opener for our students! 

I got to experience an extraordinarily fun and engaging math lesson with some 3rd graders this morning, and I want to share it with you.  Director of Curriculum and Instruction Karen Fredericks joined me in BCEMS 3rd grade teacher Carey Miller's classroom for about an hour today, and we got to see our new math program, Illustrative Mathematics, in action.  Take a look here: https://youtu.be/YSdSx0WdbtM

Focusing on Student Wellness & Engagement is key to getting everyone off to a positive start to the school year, and I am happy to show you a wonderful example of one of our school communities getting the year off to an incredibly fun and engaging start! The BTMES Middle School had their first "Rock, Paper, Scissors" Tournament in three years on the soccer field last week, and I can promise you that watching this event will engage you and make you feel very well!

Chris

We will be sharing a Weekly School Showcase video each week that shines a spotlight on our students and staff across the district.  These Showcases proved to be very popular last year, and we look forward to showing you all of the outstanding and exciting learning opportunities that go on in our schools every day!

For this week, we have a showcase video welcoming everybody back and introducing our BUUSD Strategic Plan.  We hope you like it!

Congratulations to outgoing Athletic Director Natalie Soffen, SHS Baseball Coach Dan Kiniry, and the SHS Boys Varsity Baseball Team for winning the 2022 Division II State Championship last Saturday!  Their 4-2 victory over the Lyndon Institute Vikings was a perfect cap to an incredibly successful season built on outstanding teamwork and performances game after game.  Check out this post-championship recap from Coach Kiniry and the players!

Some of you may recall that we started these showcases last summer with a brief visit to all of our schools.  When visiting Barre Town, we were in the Susan Barnard Community Garden, where we pointed out that this beautiful place was inspired by the "healthy growth of our community."  We thought this special place would be a perfect spot to come full circle at the end of the year to focus on what has been most important in this most challenging of years.  The brief video was produced before the news of the Texas tragedy, but rewatching it this morning was a very powerful experience.  Powerful not because of anything extraordinary or exceptional going on, but simply because what you see here is so beautifully normal and expected by all of us:  kids and adults working and learning together in a caring, loving community.