From the Principal's Desk:
August 8, 2023
Dear Salisbury Community School families,
One behalf of everyone at Salisbury Community School, I would like to welcome you to the 2023-2024 school year! The first day of school is still a few weeks away, but amazingly, outside of the school building one bush is already changing color and dropping leaves!
I hope you have had good summers, and that the kids have made a few memories. It’s been a tough one with the weather, for sure, and our hearts go out to everyone who has been affected by the summer storms, whether locally, across Vermont, or beyond. Our school, being up on a ridge, stayed dry, but we know many were not so lucky.
We’re excited for the new year at SCS! From a parent’s perspective, there will be a lot of consistency from last year to this year: the staff is almost completely the same, our schedule and system for drop off and pick up are the same, lunch will work the same way, and we will of course continue traditions like Fall Foliage Fun, the Holiday Dollar Store, and Bike Week. But we will also have some changes too: we will have two combined classrooms (a 2/ 3 and a 3/ 4), we will be doing a school wide pilot of the “Bridges 3” math program in collaboration with the educational non-profit Math Learning Center, and we will be hosting several student teachers from Middlebury College! I think it’s going to be a fun year.
Bjarki Sears
Principal
Staffing News at SCS
For a second year in a row, Salisbury Community School has very few changes in our staff. Staying in their same positions as primary classroom teachers are: Casey Fitzgerald teaching Kindergarten, Ann Rubright, First Grade, Jennifer Larocque combined Second and Third Grades, and Amy Clapp, teaching our combined Third and Fourth Grade. Our “specials” teachers all return: Eileen Gombosi teaching Art, Sarah Metcalf, Music and Band, Sierra Thornton, Physical Education, and Eliana Cañas-Parra teaching Spanish. Lili Foster continues as our Academic Interventionist, Madeline Wilson our Speech and Language Pathologist, Tammie Johnson remains our Counselor, and Vicky Wideman, our CSAC Clinician. Megan Sutton is our Library/Media Specialist and Nancy Velez, our Library Assistant. Haysal Jones helps us stay healthy as our school nurse, Peter Maloy looks after us as our custodian, and Kathleen Newton keeps us fed as our wonderful cook! Sandy Hayes and Suzie Quesnel work to support students, especially in the younger grades. Donna Simpson continues as the school Administrative Assistant and Health Designee, a role that is one hundred different jobs rolled into one.
Two of our staff members from last year moved on to new positions, but we are happy to say that they didn’t go far! Frankie Wisonwski will be teaching 1st Grade at Mary Hogan in Middlebury, and Wendy Taylor will be teaching 1st Grade in Cornwall! We wish them both the best of luck in their new roles, and know they will both have great years.
At the moment we only have one new hire to announce: Emmaleigh Sabol, who will be taking over our 5th grade class. Emmaleigh comes to us from Barnstead Elementary School in New Hampshire, and we are excited to welcome her to the Salisbury community! We will also have one new paraeducator, but that hire has not been made as of the writing of this letter.
One other important staffing change: Special Educator Amy Pyfrom is now full time at SCS! Last year we had to share with Ripton, but some staffing changes gave us a change to get her for good, so we jumped at the chance. I know Amy is excited to be at Salisbury all day and have her feet anchored in one spot, even though she will miss the students she worked with last year in Ripton.
This summer, while things were quiet, our custodian Peter Maloy did a great job with the summer cleaning. The building has been thoroughly cleaned and the grounds have been refreshed and inspected for safety. When you come to school, check out the new sidewalk to our “community entrance”- no more dangerous footing!
Grade Configuration News:
As stated above, much of what we do will remain very consistent, but we always look to improve or adjust based on student needs. One example of that adjustment this year is our grade structure. This year (23-24) we have a fairly unique situation with our class sizes, with a large 3rd grade in between two small grades. After exploring many possibilities, we decided that a hybrid 2-3/3-4 split would work really well. The third graders are split between two “homerooms”- either the 2-3 room with Jenn Larocque or the 3-4 room with Amy Clapp. They will spend much of the day in those groups, while also re-uniting as a whole 3rd grade for math instruction and “specials” like PE and Art, and working across grade levels during literacy time. Parents and guardians of students in those classes received information about this, and about their students’ placements, in the spring, but it is very likely that people will have more questions now that the year is about to begin. To share details about the grade configuration, and help answer any questions, we will be hosting an informational meeting about the 2-3-4 grade configuration on Monday, August 28th at 6:00 here at Salisbury Community School. We encourage all interested community members to join us!
Get involved in FOSCS!
One area of consistency will be the work of our parent-teacher organization Friends of Salisbury Community School (FOSCS). A solid PTO is really powerful for a school, especially an elementary school, and it really impacts students’ lives and well-being more than most people realize. Enough cannot be said about the impact FOSCS has on kids’ experiences at school, and the more people get involved, the more we can accomplish. To get involved in FOSCS, please reach out to Principal Sears at bsears@acsdvt.org, or to James Clark, FOSCS co-chair, at jamesearlclark@gmail.com. They'd both be happy to help you get involved!
A Proud International Baccalaureate School:
As an International Baccalaureate World School, we are continuing to develop our curriculum to be child-centered, engaging, integrated and action focused. Students across the grades all participate in the International Baccalaureate’s Primary Years Programme, and we look forward to teaching you more about the program throughout the year. Please always feel free to ask teachers about their curriculum, and attending open houses can be a great way to learn more about IB. This year we will be continuing our intentional focus on creating positive learning environments using the research-based approach called “Responsive Classroom”. Developing literacy skills, and growing strong reading habits, are going to continue to be things we focus on, as they open the doors to further learning and enjoyment. We believe deeply that a connection of home and school around reading can be incredibly powerful, and we encourage everyone to read together with their children, and to create spaces for children to read alone.
Some logistics:
School will begin on Wednesday, August 30th. The doors to the school will open at 7:30 for a prompt start of our school day at 7:45. It is very important that students be on time each day, as teachers will be meeting with students and orienting them to the day’s work as soon as they arrive. For this reason, we also ask that parents who would like to talk with teachers do so before or after school, but not at time of arrival. We want teachers to be able to greet and welcome each student into their classroom and give them their undivided attention. This will result in a great start to your children’s day!
Students will be dismissed at 2:45 pm. Students departing by car are dismissed at the upper parking lot. If a student is picked up early, they must be signed out at the front desk. Please be sure to include the reason the child needed to leave early. The end of the day is a very important time of reflection and organization. It is expected that students stay for a full day unless there are extenuating circumstances.
All academic research shows that It is important that students attend school regularly, and attendance is something we will want to communicate about clearly this year. If your child will not be in school, please call Donna at the front desk at 802-352-4291 to report the absence. If your student is going to miss several days in a row for a planned absence, please reach about that beforehand. If a student misses school regularly (more than 5 times over a four week period) we will reach out to provide support around attendance.
ACSD Bus routes will be published in the paper and on our website within the next few weeks by the Central Office. You can also request a hard copy by calling Donna Simpson at 352-4291.
Our Breakfast and Lunch Program offers healthy kid-friendly food to all students, for free. To be able to offer this, however, we do need our families to fill out a free and reduced lunch application, even if families would not usually be eligible. It takes a couple of minutes but it’s important to keep the meals free for all. Please look for those forms either electronically in follow-up emails from me, or to come home with your child during the first few days of school, and please do fill them out, even if you would not qualify. ALSO: This free and reduced information is necessary for us to maintain our funding as a “Title 1 school”, a label that provides us with funding for our Academic interventionist. As a result, it is essential that we get free and reduced applications back from every household. We will follow up with anyone that is missing the form within the first few weeks of school.
