This year’s recovery plan, as determined by the Vermont Agency of Education, focused on Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and Wellbeing, Engagement & Truancy, and Academic Achievement & Success. Burlington School District (BSD) teachers, administrators, and district leaders worked together in the spring of 2021 to do a needs assessment of the district and determine areas of focus for the 2021-2022 school year. From there, the team developed goals and specific activities that would be undertaken in ‘21-’22. While none of us had any idea how challenging the ‘21-’22 school year would prove to be, it is important to take a step back and see all of the important work that we, BSD educators, administrators, and district leaders, were able to accomplish this year. Is it all perfect? No. Have we done a few things that will help our overall success? Absolutely. To help celebrate those accomplishments, here is a summary of a few activities that were accomplished this year. All of this work was completed by the district, which means it was completed by students, parents, community members, educators, administrators, and a variety of support staff. None of this could have happened without you, so THANK YOU!
SEL & Wellbeing
The SEL Task Force was established and was extremely effective at identifying areas of need, which were later added to the recovery plan. This group looked at SEL data, collected information on SEL happening in BSD, and reviewed several pieces of software for possible use in BSD. Later, this group oversaw pilots of Panorama and Rhithm. Finally, the Task Force recommended BSD implement a climate survey using Panorama (shared to BSD employees only) in the future and implement Wellbeing Pulse Checks (shared to BSD employees only).
Additional items to support SEL & Wellbeing were created by Nick Woolf and Mika Moore.
Additionally, BSD hired Jen Coleman to work with the district to develop better systems for tracking and support mental health. Over the course of the year Jen worked with district leadership to create an onboarding process for mental health workers, consulted with the BSD Crisis Team, created several opportunities for counseling students from St. Michael’s College to support BSD students, and created an opportunity for all BSD School Counselors to participate in the UMatter Suicide Prevention training this fall.
Thank you to all of the BSD Educators, Students, and Families who made this work happen!
Increasing Engagement and Reducing Truancy
In order to increase engagement and reduce truancy, many folks worked to increase the District’s summer offerings. This included summer school offerings including the Racial Justice Academy and increased Multilingual learner offerings. Summer work also included kindergarten teachers doing home visits for their incoming students. These programs will continue this summer.
Instructional coaches and principals participated in Instructional Rounds training throughout the course of the year, where they focused their school visits on increasing student engagement. The group was able to observe many students and teachers throughout the year.
Victor Prussack, Q Pinckney, Lauren McBride, and Dov Stucker also worked on opportunities for students to become more involved in internships, athletics, and extracurriculars. They will be putting some of those solutions into place next year. Stay tuned for more information!
Thank you to all of the BSD Educators, Students, and Families who made this work happen!
Autumn Bangoura, Christy Gallese, Sparks, Miriam Ehtesham-Cating, Joe Faitak, Nadya Bech-Conger, Brent Truchon, Betsy Knox, Bobby Riley, Shannon Roesch, Len Phelan, Genevra MacPhail, Stephanie Phillips, Julie Brown, Bonnie Johnson-Aten, Nina Oropeza, Joni Pecor, Jason Gingold, Josh Cronin, Sabrina Westdijk, Mattie Scheidt, Megan Rozumalski, Beth Fialko-Casey, Stacie Curtis, Jim Kelley, Kristie Callahan, Ashley Stagner, Lauren McBride, Tom Flanagan, Joe Resteghini, Ashley Howard, Colleen Cowell, Victor Prussack, Q Pinckney, Lauren McBride, Dov Stucker
Academic Achievement & Success
The Academic Achievement and Success portion of the recovery plan focused on creating coherence of systems across the district. The first task was to begin the MTSS process by aligning the work of Educational Support Teams (EST) across the district. The Task Force started by interviewing principals about the current reality and recruiting teachers, school counselors, and school psychologists to create common expectations and resources for EST. Their current draft can be found in the BSD EST Handbook (shared to BSD employees only). The Task Force also started collecting district wide data on EST plans to inform future decision making. This team will continue to meet next year in order to evaluate district data and update the handbook as school-based teams request changes. Plans are in the works for school based teams to be trained in the new handbook processes over the summer. Principals worked alongside the Task Force to figure out ways for EST to meet regularly at each building. This work continues as schedules are being made for next year.
The Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) Task Force picked up the work of the EST Task Force by participating in a training on MTSS frameworks and purpose. They continue to meet regularly to determine the roll out of MTSS over the next several years. It is important to note that the first step of this roll-out is to have a more consistent EST process, which we are doing next year.
Through the recovery plan we added a new full day PreK classroom at Edmunds Elementary this year. A special shout out to Katie Fitch the Classroom teacher and Special Educator. As well as her amazing team Heidi Cary Speech Language Pathologist and Collaborative Teacher and two amazing Support staff Teresa Moschin and Victoria Beattie. We also started a new Pilot Program which included an Early Childhood Special Educator (ECSE) and Kindergarten teacher co-teaching together called Bright Start. A special shout out to Eric Kauffman as the Early Childhood Special Educator (ECSE) and Vi Courville, a Kindergarten teacher. These two teachers have worked so hard this year to look at how we can slow things down in Kindergarten through a more play based themed approach and see children achieve grade level standards similar to their peers.
Finally, the Middle School Homework Task force worked together throughout the spring to draft guidelines for middle school homework. There was a realization that school expectations were very different across the two schools and even within the buildings, so the task force met to study best practices related to homework and survey students, families, and educators. Their draft guidelines are currently being reviewed by middle school faculty and will be rolled out for next school year.
Thank you to all of the BSD Educators, Students, and Families who made this work happen!
Katie Fitch, Heidi Cary, Teresa Moschin, Victoria Beattie, Eric Kauffman, Vi Couture, Antony Dennis, Nadya Bech-Conger, Kali Ali, Mel Daigle, Molly Quavelin, Tracy Truzansky, Shayla Vo, Laura Nugent, Emily Russen, Mark Nigolian, Julia Hamill, Lindsay Dunn Thomas, Allison Tinson, Gayle Botelho, Colleen Cowell, Meredith Hoisington, Jim Kelliher, Sara Crothers, Allison Tinson, Jelena Lovric, Andrew Styles, Bobby Riley, Cera Putney-Crane, Kim Hunt, Karyn Vogel, Lilly Morena, Melyssa Sweet, Stacie Curtis
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