From the Principal's Desk:
Dear Salisbury Families:
What a busy time at Salisbury Community School! Once April comes the school year FLIES along (it's really quite amazing), and partially that's because a lot of things happen in the last few months of the school year! Within the last few weeks we have had: a total solar eclipse, an artist-in-residency (Jeh Kulu), parent-teacher conferences, and VTCAP standardized testing. Next month promises to be just as busy: we will have author visits, our Family Literacy Night, Bike Week, 5th graders at KEEC, and 5th grade IB exhibition- it'll be fun!
With so much going on, this newsletter is a little long, so I will keep my opening short. Please read below for details about all the things mentioned above!
Right below this I did include my favorite photo I took during the solar eclipse, taken from my house on the Bridport/Cornwall line. The dark half circle in the sky is, I believe, the edge of totality as the moon moved to fully block the sun. I've never quite seen an image like it, so I thought I would share.
Sincerely,
Bjarki
ACSD and SCS' education around the eclipse is captured in the media!
Along with the excitement of the eclipse can the excitement of learning ABOUT the eclipse, and ACSD and SCS, particularly under the vision and leadership of teacher Amy Clapp, really embraced the eclipse as a wonderful opportunity to engage with science learning. We are VERY proud to share the following media stories about eclipse learning and ACSD. Amy's 3-4 class is heavily featured throughout.
Here are links to the articles: the "buttons" below also contain the links, but they sometimes don't show up on some computers, so you can also click on these:
Link to Education Week article
Jeh Kulu at Salisbury Community School!
Over the last two weeks we were honored to host Jeh Kulu, a Burlington-based arts collective that shares West African traditions in drumming and dancing with audiences of all ages. During their two-week residency they drummed and danced with our students, all culminating in a public performance. So thank you Ismael, Seny, and Ibrahim for bringing such joy and rhythm to our school! Special thanks as well to music teacher Sarah Metcalf for arranging everything, and to Physical Education teacher Sierra Thornton, who stepped up (literally) when one member of Jeh Kulu was unable to make the performance, so Sierra was the leader for many of the dances.
Save the date for Family Literacy Night! May 9th!
At Salisbury Community School, and across ACSD, we are particularly focused on building our students' strength, confidence, and interest as readers and writers. An important piece of that is our status as a "Title 1" school- where we receive federal funds to offer more educational support for our students. These funds pay for a substantial percentage of our "Academic Interventionist" position, so they are very important. They also help pay for us to engage with the community around family literacy, and one important way we do that is with Family Literacy Night, where we open our school to families and community members to come in and take part in programming relating to literacy!
Our featured guest this year is Matthew Dickerson, who many of you probably know as the "outdoor columnist" in the Addison Independent. Besides writing about hunting and fishing in the Addy Indy, Professor Dickerson (he also teaches at Middlebury College) writes for a wide variety of audiences and ages- including fiction and non-fiction. Matthew's work is a great example of the broad array of types of writing that we can enjoy and value, and we are excited to have him come and share his experiences as an outdoorsperson and writer with our community members of all ages.
We will be holding a dinner starting at 5:30, with activities (including art activities, games, our keynote speaker/storyteller, and a book give-away) beginning around 6:00. So save the date!
SCS Finishes VTCAP testing.
Certainly probably not quite as fun as seeing an eclipse, but still really important, was our completing of VTCAP standardized testing. 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders all took standardized test in English/Language Arts and Math, and our 5th graders also took a science test! Students engaged really well, and we were again able to use our small size to our advantage, breaking into fairly small test session groups to keep everything manageable. A big "thank you!" to the students for working so diligently and doing their best.
This is the 2nd year of VTCAP testing, and now that we can begin comparing years, we really look forward to digging into the results we get to continue to strengthen and refine our instruction.
