Hi, WCUUSD educators,

Spring is always such a busy time in school systems, mostly because we are both attending to the current school year while also planning the next school year. I certainly feel that tension right now as I am planning summer professional learning opportunities while simultaneously digging into this year's student data and thinking about next instructional steps, for example. I think you'll see that "tension" reflected in this month's newsletter!

As always, please reach out if you have any questions or concerns.

Warmly,

Jen

Curriculum Council met twice this month. Our major areas of focus were functional skills and planning for Curriculum Camp.

We are developing a plan for moving the functional skills work forward that was started last summer at Curriculum Camp. We want to ensure that folks are clear about the relationship between functional skills and transferable skills, and we want to articulate and implement effective practices across the school system. Relatedly, we want to ensure that we deepen our understanding of the DESSA social emotional screener and leverage the resources that are available to us.

We brainstormed ideas for Curriculum Camp in alignment with our work plan, the district’s strategic plan, and the new Education Quality Standards. We will finalize the plans next month. For now, know that the major areas of focus will be elementary writing, further elementary unit development for global citizenship and science, PE and health, and functional skills. We are also working on scheduling. Although the dates have not yet been solidified, we do know that they will not conflict with ESY or the Responsive Classroom dates. Details and a chance to sign up will be forthcoming in mid-May.

Ongoing areas of work include revising the Educational Support Team (EST) process, promoting the Responsive Classroom courses, and supporting our work in writing. There is more information about the Responsive Classroom courses and the feedback about our K-6 writing work on April 2 in this month’s curriculum newsletter.

• Berlin: Celia Guggemos

• Calais: Jenna Howard

• Doty: Allison Fayle

• East Montpelier: Alicia Lyford, Hilary Paquet, Dave Willard

• Rumney: Veronica Fair

• U-32: Erin Galligan-Baldwin, Elizabeth Marks, Amy Molina, Brittany Perry

• WCUUSD: Ellen Dorsey, Jen Miller-Arsenault

The Education Quality Committee meets on the second Thursday of each month beginning at 5:00 p.m. Our next meeting is Thursday, May 8 from 5:00-6:30 p.m. at Central Office.

The EQC will continue the examination of our district's fall and winter data that they started last month and would like to hear more information about our intervention system. As part of their work, the EQC will prepare a report to the full school board about our students' progress based on their analysis.

As of the publication of this newsletter, there is no slideshow presentation for May's EQC meeting. Should there be a slideshow, it will be included in next month's newsletter.

As mentioned in this newsletter in the fall a few times, Vermont's revised Education Quality Standards (EQS) go into effect on July 1, 2025.

One resource to support their full implementation is the VT IRIS Ethnic Studies Standards Framework developed by the Ethnic Studies and Social Equity Standards Advisory Working Group as part of VT's Act 1 of 2019.

For a number of years our unit design template has included supports for teachers to consider and implement practices that include tenets of culturally responsive teaching, trauma-informed practices, and universal design for learning.

In order to fully implement the new EQS, I am in the process of revising the template to ensure clear alignment with the IRIS Framework, auditing our existing units, and making a plan to fully implement the new EQS.

The specific domains of the IRIS Framework include:

• Identity Development: Students will develop their identities and make connections to their identities, knowledges, histories, and experiences of Ethnic Studies Groups.
• Resisting Racism: Students will develop systems literacy to understand and change the impact of racism and intersectional forms of oppression on Ethnic Studies Groups.
• Interconnectedness: Students will value the cultural wealth of Ethnic Studies Groups and support community actualization--meeting basic needs of all, ensuring safety, and creating the conditions of connectedness--at the local, state, and national levels.
• Social Responsibility: Students will participate in uplifting collective liberation: the freedom, well being, and joy of all peoples.

Stay tuned for more information and an opportunity to engage in this work in the weeks to come.

By all accounts the grade alike meetings earlier this month were successful. Of the 27 respondents, 22 people strongly agreed that the objectives of practicing using the Standard 6 rubrics and talking about instructional next steps were met, and 5 people agreed.

Respondents really enjoyed seeing writing from other schools, hearing from their colleagues about scoring practices, and having conversations with colleagues about writing.

Folks would love to engage in this practice more regularly and would appreciate having the entire grade level team together in one location in the future.

We received specific feedback about the rubrics themselves and can incorporate the feedback to make the rubrics even stronger.

Thanks so much to all who participated and provided feedback.

So far 15 have signed up. Please sign up by completing this very brief Google form at your earliest convenience so that I can support our district's next steps. See my March newsletter or email me for more information.

This month's resource is a little longer than the ones I've shared in recent months. The Novak Education Teacher's Guide to UDL contains a definition of UDL, guidance for designing UDL lessons, time saving tips, and pathways to deepen your own learning about UDL.

UDL resources shared so far:

• CAST's updated UDL guidelines
• Katie Novak's monthly newsletter
• Lesson planning template
• UDL Personalized Learning Profile
• The Science and Research Behind the UDL Framework
• Video about implementing UDL in a manageable way (2:31)
• Video likening UDL to planning a successful dinner party (3:21)
• WCUUSD unit design template

Each principal has or will soon share the school draft with faculty and staff for feedback. On May 7 we will invite community input at the school board's community forum. We will make any necessary revisions and will then seek school board approval of all CIP's at the board meeting on May 21. The approved CIP's will be posted on our websites.

As a reminder, Continuous Improvement Planning is required by the VT Agency of Education and the plans must address both Academic Achievement and Safe and Healthy Schools. We've been working hard to ensure that our draft CIP's are aligned with the district's strategic plan and will contribute to coherence in our school system.