Welcome Back 2026-2027

Dear ACSD Families,

There is something special about beginning anything, especially a new school year. New ideas await each of us as we come together in support of a common mission. That will be true in our classrooms, our schools, and our communities as we identify work worthy of scaling up to new levels. When we work alongside each other, we have the best chance of supporting our students and each other to thrive.

Last Friday, we welcomed new educators to our district. On Tuesday, our entire staff returned to reunite for the new year and celebrate together. This year, our work together will include looking at our districtwide shared stages of support designed to create a common language and a common process for noticing and responding with a consistent step-by-step framework when a student needs more in any of our classrooms or schools.

Below you'll find celebrations of our colleagues and work together to plan for the new year. You'll also find resources and an invitation to our schoolwide Welcome Back Day, planned at each school on August 25th, and on September 18th, we'll host our second annual all-district Playing Fields event in collaboration with the Flynn Center. This is a free, magical event that is open to the entire ACSD community. I hope to see you there.

With gratitude and excitement for the year ahead,

Wendy

This year, Superintendent Baker awarded eight Distinguished Service Awards to teachers, administrators, and staff who demonstrated extraordinary professional service during the 2024-25 school year:

• Larry O'Connor for his contributions to the development of collaborative human resource practices and guidance that positively impacts student learning.
• Jaclyn Countryman, Megan Grandits-Griffin, & Adelaide Brooks for their service through process of public discussion alongside the Shoreham community regarding possibilities for accelerating student progress.
• Will Chapman-Hale, KC Carr & Meghan Fahey were honored for their dedicated service to our multilingual students and the development of a plan for continued service that received commendation from the VT AOE.
• Lashawn Whitmore-Sells for her distinguished service in leading the learning community of Shoreham Elementary School in a manner that supported increased student wellbeing and academic success during a particularly challenging time.

Preschool teacher, Kim Forbes, received the Outstanding Elementary Teacher of the Year award. Kim was honored for creating deep community connections for her students and nurturing our youngest students through inquiry, play, awe, and joy!

MUHS Special Education teacher, Larry O’Connor, who received the 2026 Outstanding Secondary Teacher of the Year award! Larry was honored for his ability to listen, respect, and build lasting trust with students, parents, and colleagues through his teaching and relationships. He was also recognized for his decade-plus of union service, where he has spent countless hours advocating for his ACSD colleagues.

Chris Pratt received the Barbara Whittemore Staff of the Year Award and was honored for his work as the lead custodian at Mary Hogan where he makes sure the school is ready and leads an amazing team with care, patience, and good humor. He celebrates students and helps students know that they matter and that their care for their school community matters too!

Please join us in welcoming these amazing educators to our schools this year! We are so lucky to have 90% of our current staff returning. Among our new educators, half have worked with us in the past and 2 are joining us from international assignments (including The Atlantic College in Wales, where the IB program was founded). We're really excited to welcome this amazing new cohort to our district!

Welcome to our student teachers, Serenity, Nikita, Lee & Miranda who will be joining classrooms across the district this year! They all join us from @middleburycollege this year. We are so excited to have you here!

Over the past twenty years, more than forty ACSD educators have participated in "One Hundred Years of Teaching", a course offered through Vermont State University Center for Schools. The premise of the course is simple: educators write and share how their learning and teaching histories inform their current practice. During pre-week, eighteen former participants performed a read-aloud of their stories to an audience of other licensed teachers.

Our ACSD School Board Student Representatives, Taryn Burns '27 & Mira Biancosino '28, welcomed our teachers and staff to the new school year and shared their thoughts about how teachers have made them feel welcome and engaged during their time from kindergarten through high school. They also shared how they want to work in partnership with their teachers and that we shouldn't underestimate them as we work to raise the bar for their education districtwide.

Farm to School connects students to local food, farms, and agriculture — using hands-on experiences like field trips, taste tests, and classroom activities to build learning around where our food comes from while bringing more local foods into school meals. Here's what has been happening across ACSD:

• Field trips at schools explore food systems, farming, and our working landscape, tied into classroom learning in history, science, math, and literacy

• Partnerships across ACSD schools and with Middlebury College clubs as well as their organic farm are enriching learning across the district

• Professional learning: the Mary Hogan team, Food Service Director Steve Marinelli, and Abby Kelso (from ACORN) attended the Northeast Farm to School Institute this summer

• New bulk milk dispensers with Monument Farms milk are now in Weybridge, Bridport, and MUHS

• More local foods are on menus district-wide and continuing to grow with new farm and food partnerships in the works

• Harvest of the Month spotlights a local food each month with fun activities and taste tests

• Jr. Iron Chef: A team of 5th grade students from Mary Hogan competed in the Jr. Iron Chef competition in March and won the Lively and Local Award for their Vermont Country Risotto

Thank you for supporting this work connecting our students to the food, farms, and land right here in our community!

This year, each school will offer new Welcome Back activities on August 25th. Please look for your principal's school newsletters for details and times of your events. In addition, all ACSD families are invited to the second annual Playing Fields event. Details below:

Save the Date: ACSD students, families, and staff are invited to the Playing Fields, a joyful, interactive event at Middlebury Union Middle School on Friday, September 18th co-sponsored with the Flynn Center!

There are so many ways to support our schools!

VOLUNTEER: If you think you might want to volunteer at your child's school, please fill out the Volunteer Application to begin the process to ensure you've had your background check before you hope to volunteer:

SUBSTITUTE: Substitutes are crucial members of our school community! If you are looking for a job, have flexibility with your schedule, or are home from college for a break, we always need subs. Plus, we just raised the rate to $160/day ($200 for licensed). Apply here to substitute!

OPEN JOBS: We also have several positions at our school and the district. A fully staffed school, helps our students thrive. Find the jobs here. We hope you'll consider applying or sharing ACSD's open positions.

At ACSD, the safety and well-being of our students are at the center of everything we do. In addition to the proactive work we do to build supportive and caring school cultures, this year we are placing a special focus on staff training and reunification drills to ensure our schools and staff are prepared to respond effectively in the event of an emergency. Each of our schools follows a yearly training and drill schedule guided by state and national best practices, and our district and school-based safety teams work closely together to keep our Emergency Operations Plans up to date.

Families play a key role in school safety. Please visit our School Safety page to learn more about our approach, your role, and resources for talking with your child about safety.

Support our amazing staff! Housing can be hard to find for new (and current) staff. We have a new internal ACSD Community Bulletin Board where you can post available housing (and other resources) for ACSD staff to see. Click here to post.

Your principal will send school newsletters by email most weeks to help you stay informed about school specific news. ACSD will send a seasonal newsletter by email to remind you of district information. If you miss the emails, you can find the district newsletters here and the school newsletters are under the "Our School" tab of your school's website or with direct links here:

• Bridport

• Cornwall

• Mary Hogan

• Salisbury & Ripton

• Shoreham

• Weybridge

• MUMS

• MUHS

We use our newsletter and social media to stay connected and give you a peek into our classrooms. For more regular connection and lots of photos, follow us: Insta: @acsdvtschools FB: @acsdvt