The Howler: February 22, 2026

Dear Ottauquechee School families,

Thank you to all the parent/caregiver volunteers who came to help with our monthly All-School Celebration on Friday -- the cherished "Snack Cart"! It was a celebratory day all around, with the Kindergarten Alphabet Parade, the Golden Paw Awards and many classroom celebrations. See photos below!

Thank you also to Sanborn, Head & Associates | Engineering & Geoscience Consulting Firm for their ongoing support of our Science Night, hosted in partnership with SPARK!, an organization of Dartmouth graduate-level scientists committed to community outreach for our future scientists, engineers and mathematicians!

Remember, we are on school break next week. Town Meeting Day, which is the last day to vote on the town and school district ballot and budget items, is Tuesday, March 3. Students return to school on Wednesday, March 4.

Wishing you a relaxing and rejuvenating break,

Amelia Donahey

Principal

3/3: Town Meeting Day (including school district budget vote)

3/4: Return to school!

3/5: PTO Meeting 6pm in the OQS Library

3/6-NEW: Final Ski Club & Winter Enrichment

3/9: NAEP Testing (4th Grade)

3/12: NEW: OQS Family Meeting: Behavior Systems, 5:30-7pm in the Library (see below for more info)

3/19: Early Release Day 12:45pm (PK-5) for student-led conferences; Cookies & Conversation with the Principal drop-in 4:30-6:30pm

3/20: No School (student-led conferences); Coffee & Conversation with the Principal drop-in 8-10:30am; Report Cards Released

3/25: SPARK! Community Science Night 5:00-6:30

3/30: Late Start Monday: K-5 drop off 9:45-10:00; no school for PreK

3/31: Book Character Day

4/2: PTO Meeting 6pm in the OQS Library

4/13: Late Start Monday: K-5 drop off 9:45-10:00; no school for PreK

4/20-4/24: April Break

4/29: SPARK! Community Science Night 5:00-6:30

5/1: Better World Day

5/7: PTO Meeting 6pm in the OQS Library

5/18: Late Start Monday: K-5 drop off 9:45-10:00; no school for PreK

5/25: No School (Memorial Day)

5/26: Spring Performance (4th-5th grades)

5/27: SPARK! Community Science Night 5:00-6:30

6/3: Spring Concert (K-3)

6/4: PTO Meeting 6pm in the OQS Library

6/11: International Day of Play

When K-5 students arrive between 7:45-8:00am, they have three choices:

• Breakfast and activities in the cafeteria
• "Drop and walk" movement outside on the playground (or in the gym during inclement weather)
• Quiet reading, writing, or drawing in the library (limited # of students)

Last week, Ms. Carmen worked with supervising staff to update our expectations for the cafeteria time. Please review these with your child!

Over the past week, 4th and 5th grade teachers put in place a temporary plan to offer indoor recess to some students on a rotating basis, allowing for smaller groups outside. We simultaneously increased staffing, to have a total of between 5-8 staff supervising recess each day last week. The recess/lunch block was notably calmer and safer throughout the week, leading to an overall more peaceful atmosphere in the entire school.

On Wednesday, March 4, we are implementing a longer-term new 4th & 5th grade recess/lunch schedule, to ensure all students still have access to the playground. Key changes include:

• Splitting the approximately 60 students into two mixed groups, one larger (~40), one smaller (<20)
• Increasing the number of staff on duty
• Reopening the field for 4th/5th grade play

The smaller group will:

• attend lunch at the same time as 3rd grade ,
• sit on the opposite side of the cafeteria from third grade, with additional staff,
• and attend recess on their own, with 2 staff on duty.

The larger group will

• attend recess with 3 staff on duty,
• and attend lunch on their own with 2 staff on duty.

In addition, teachers have taken care to separate students with known recurring conflicts, while ensuring each child has one or more positive peer connections in their group.

Girls on the Run inspires individuals of all abilities to discover, build, and grow their self-confidence. Together, they experience a sense of belonging and connection as a team. Registration opens 2/23.

OQS Girls on the Run Details:

• Wednesdays and Fridays from 2:45-4:30, starting Wednesday, March 25, 2026

• Open to girls in grades 3, 4, and 5

• Two days per week participation is mandatory for the benefit of your girl and other participants. Please do not register your girl if she has conflicts with other clubs or groups.

• Mark your calendar for June 6, 2026 - your family won’t want to miss the 5K celebration in Manchester, VT

• The Vermont Girls on the Run registration fee is $130. OQS has acquired funds to cover $60 per girl. This brings your registration fee to $70.

• We can take fifteen 3rd, 4th, and 5th-grade girls on our team. If more register, they will be added to a wait list.

More information and registration link here

Over the next few months, we will be hosting a series of meetings to allow families to learn more about work underway at OQS and to share your voice as an important part of the process.

On Thursday, March 12, from 5:30 – 7:00pm, please join HSD Special Education Director Erica Rogstad and OQS Principal Amelia Donahey for an overview of state laws and district policies governing behavior systems in Hartford, as well as specific procedures used at OQS. After that introduction, we'll split into smaller groups in order to share experiences and provide feedback on updates under consideration for OQS's "logical consequences" flowchart.

All parents and caregivers are invited to attend in-person in the OQS Library, online at https://meet.google.com/zos-nrqx-cju, or by dialing‪ 307-364-0392‬, PIN: ‪483 812 708‬#.

During our Late Start staff meeting on February 16, our VTPBIS TA/Coach Rebecca Lallier shared initial findings about the current state of Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports at Ottauquechee School. She shared more about the research behind PBIS. Then she engaged staff in "thinking functionally" to better understand, teach, prevent, acknowledge and respond to behaviors. Check out the sections below for more details.

Across all three tiers of support (schoolwide, small group, and individualized), our total implementation score is: 19% in place

By tier:

• Tier 1 (Schoolwide supports): 15%
  

• Tier 2 (Small group supports): 22%
  

• Tier 3 (Individualized supports): 21%
  
  

This tells us something important: while individual practices are happening in classrooms, we do not currently have a strong, consistent schoolwide system.

✅ Teachers are teaching expectations.

• 100% of staff interviewed reported teaching schoolwide expectations.
  

• 100% of classroom teachers interviewed integrate expectations into academics and social-emotional learning.
  

• 90% of students said teachers mostly tell them what they are doing well.
  
  

✅ Students understand what positive behavior looks like.

• 90% of students could give an example of expectations in action.
  

• 80% of students reported receiving positive acknowledgement in the past two weeks.
  

• All students interviewed said they are acknowledged in ways they like.
  
  

✅ We are identifying students who need more support.

• Strong screening systems exist at Tier 2 and Tier 3.
  

• Students receiving additional support still have access to Tier 1 supports.

The data also highlighted clear gaps that we need to address:

⚠️ Expectations are not consistently known or reinforced.

• Only 50% of staff could name the schoolwide expectations.
  

• Only 10% of students could name them.
  

• Expectations are mostly taught at the beginning of the year.
  

• The language of our expectations feels too complex for regular classroom use.

⚠️ Acknowledgement systems are inconsistent.

• Some staff do not use our “Paws” system.
  

• Students report acknowledgements are often group-based.
  

• Students shared they would like more consistent and timely recognition.
  

⚠️ Discipline procedures are unclear and inconsistent.

• Only 50% of staff knew the difference between classroom-managed and office-managed behaviors.
  

• 0% of staff said procedures are used consistently across the school.
  

• Staff described having “a menu of options” rather than a clear process.
  

• Follow-up and communication are not always clear.
  

⚠️ Systems and data structures are not established, across all three tiers:

• Team structures are weak or not active.
  

• Data systems are not driving decisions.
  

• Staff report that PBIS is not currently connected to school improvement efforts.
  
  

When asked what they would change about school, students said:

• “Stop the fights — verbal and physical.”
  

• “Everyone be really kind and listening.”
  

• “More celebrations.”
  

• “If we would follow all the rules.”

Ms. Lallier emphasized that OQS has a lot of strength when it comes to PBIS. OQS first implemented PBIS back in 2011. Over the years, we became an "exemplary" VTPBIS school. To this day, we are fortunate to have a committed staff that works together and who care about kids.

Ms. Lallier noted that PBIS takes ongoing work -- continuous professional learning, annual onboarding of new staff, regular data analysis and continual reflection -- to keep implementing with fidelity. She noted that many schools see implementation wane during periods of other change, which for OQS included ELA curriculum adoption and the important, valuable work to embed the Wolf Way into our school culture.

Rebuilding PBIS means strengthening our systems, and it begins with reestablishing strong shared leadership, driven by a collaborative team of teachers and administration. Currently 4 teachers from a variety of roles as well as our principal are planning to attend a 2-day VTPBIS Workshop about "Refreshing, Enhancing, and Deepening PBIS" within our school. There, we will use the data from our recent Walkthrough and Tiered Fidelity Inventory, which is summarized above, to take the next steps, which might include:

📌 Clarifying schoolwide expectations, including behaviors to increase as well as decrease

📌 Defining consistent behavior responses and interventions managed at a staff, behavior team, and administrative level

📌 Ensuring all staff are empowered to celebrate when expectations are met — and to intervene effectively when they are not

📌 Establishing routines for regular, purposeful use of data across the school, in order to get ahead of patterns before they become entrenched

Below, Vermont schools that are currently implementing PBIS at a "gold" level share about the impact of PBIS in their schools.

The final activity we participated in on 2/16 was an exercise in thinking about the functions of behavior.

All behavior is communication. When raising and teaching young children, adults are actively teaching them ways to communicate their needs that positively impact their relationships and learning environments. Sometimes we notice children communicating their needs in a way that interferes with positive relationships or learning environments. When this happens, we need to think about the function -- or purpose -- of the behavior:

1. Why is the child engaging in this interfering behavior? What are they trying to gain or avoid?

2. How can we respond in a way that will effectively reduce the behavior?

3. How can we help them meet the function pro-socially?

Getting curious about the functions of behavior helps us to be intentional about building students' skills for the long-term, beyond just "solving" the situation in the moment.

This is a new section, which will feature rotating snapshots of schoolwide data.

This week, we're focusing on historical and current trends in our schoolwide "SWIS" Behavioral Referral data. These referrals are entered for both "minor" (teacher- or staff-managed) and "major" (behavior team or administrator-managed) behaviors.

Currently, the two most common behaviors are defiance (23% of all reported behavioral incidents) and disruption (17%). The two most common functions of those behaviors are escaping a task (34% of defiance/disruptions) and obtaining peer attention (22%).

After seeing a spike in the average number of referrals per school day in October and November, we have been seeing behavioral referrals decline over the months of December, January and February.

This final graph below shows the rate of referrals per 100 students associated with each school year since your school enrolled in SWIS. Referrals rates are averaged per 100 students in order to accurately compare across school years with varying student enrollment totals. This is useful for comparing overall trends in referral patterns by referral type across years of SWIS implementation.

Week 22: What is Neurodiversity?

Precision in language matters in understanding, communication, and advocacy. They are frameworks for how we view human identity. If we misinterpret the definitions, we risk erasing the very individuals the movement seeks to support. Thus, it’s important to know the distinction between the words neurodiverse, neurotypical, and neurodivergent.

Neurodiversity is the natural and non-hierarchical variation in human brains and nervous systems, including neurotypicality, that results in varied and equally valid experiences among all people, including those who are Neurodivergent and those who are Neurotypical. —VT-HEC NDI Advisory Group, 2022

Neurotypical describes individuals whose brain development, cognitive functioning, and behaviors align with societal standards and "typical" developmental milestones.

Neurodivergent describes people whose brains function, learn, and process information differently than what is considered typical. It is a non-medical, umbrella term for individuals with conditions like autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and others.

Using "neurodiverse" to describe a single person is a bit like calling a single grape a "fruit salad." It doesn't quite work! Diversity is a property of groups; divergence is a trait of the individual. Neurodivergence highlights these neurological differences as variations rather than deficits, focusing on unique strengths.

As we learn more about neurodiversity, we are also making a paradigm shift from the belief that there is such a thing as a normal, healthy brain and an abnormal, unhealthy brain to a neurodiversity paradigm where there is no such thing as a normal brain and that variation in neurology is natural, and none is more right or wrong than another.

In every grade level, students have at least one opportunity per day to eat a snack. If possible, please send your child with a healthy snack that they enjoy each day. We have a limited supply of extra snacks in the office, and these are only for students who do not have access to snacks from home.

We are seeking community support for a child in DCF care who attends school in the Hartford district. We are looking for individuals or families who may be able to help with respite support (similar to babysitting), transportation to activities, and possibly longer-term care options in the future.

If you or someone you know may be interested in learning more or supporting this child, please contact Amy Wagner, DCF, Resource Coordinator at 802-798-6461 or email Amy.Wagner@Vermont.gov, for additional information.

MEET WINDSOR & DEWEY

A pair of Bald Eagles who built a nest and successfully raised one eaglet on VINS property last year.

On February 14th, we saw two Bald Eagles together on the nest, through our new live cam, for the first time! This was an exciting moment for VINS Staff, a year in the making.

Assuming they continue to visit the nest regularly, we will share the livestream link with you in the coming weeks! At that point, you will be able to watch this pair of Bald Eagles, up close, in real time. We hope they will lay eggs again and raise their young, as they did last year, but no promises. We will invite you to witness how the story unfolds! Stay tuned at vinsweb.org.

Date, Time, Location: Thursday, March 12, 2026 from 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. | The Pavilion 111 State Street, Rm #110, Montpelier, VT 05602 (access thru 109 State Street lobby)

Description:

Did you know Vermont has a Kid Governor? Highgate 5th grader Roslyn Fortin was elected to a 1-year term in January on a platform of supporting people experiencing homelessness. The six candidates she was running against make up the Kid Governor’s cabinet. Since we’ve got a kid government, why not a kid press corps?! Join Buy Why, our podcast for curious kids, for a kid-friendly press conference where the audience becomes the reporters!