Harwood Middle School Update, April 26, 2019

HUMS 7th grade Scientist Curious about what they are made of.
Students are looking at their own cells! In science, students are investigating the differences and similarities between plant and animal cells by making slides of tissues from their own cheek and a thin layer of an onion.  Amazing technology allows us to see the smallest parts of our bodies!

7th Grade Marketing Experts Connect with their greater community. 
7th Graders demonstrate their knowledge of how marketing strategies influence others.
This team focused their efforts on selling friends...
  

IMPORTANT REMINDER!  

MARK YOUR CALENDARS

Spring Student/Family Conferences are

scheduled for May 1st and 9th.

Please click on the link below and follow the directions to schedule a time/day.

Please contact Liz Hepp (lhepp@huusd.org) with questions.

Click here to schedule your spring 2019 conference

          HUUSD BOARD UPDATE: April 10, 2019 
Dear members of our six town community,
       At our last meeting on April 10, 2019, the Harwood Unified Union School District (HUUSD) Board took action on the five (5) items below (listed in order of the time in the meeting when the vote occurred):

1. Approved the following items as part of the consent agenda:  Approve past meeting Minutes; Accept Board warrants totaling $252,916.35; Approved addition of May 15, 2019 and June 5, 2019 board meetings
2. Adopted: That the administration be tasked with developing a report based on the 2018 Student Performance Data Workbook highlighting the positive and negative takeaways from the data and what, if any, action steps are planned based on the data.
3. Adopted: That the board remove third grade from the classes offered at Fayston Elementary School for the 2019-20 school year due to exceptionally low-class size.Adopted:That the board direct the administration to prepare updated Education Cost per Equalized Pupil and Homestead tax projections to cover FY19 to FY20
4. AND that these projections be modeled after Appendix C1 and C6 of the Washington West SU Act 46 Study Report (Revised 4‐7‐2016) 
   AND that these projections assume no changes are made to the district configuration
   AND that these projections are prepared in such a way that they can be updated to reflect various district configuration proposals as easily as possible
   AND that these projections be made available to the board no later than May 15, 2019
   AND that the report include information on the impact of a bond on the tax rate as was included in the March 4, 2019 board packet
   AND that the formula and assumptions use to reach the conclusions found are made available at a degree of specificity that renders the results reproducible.
   5. Moved the due date for board goal 2.2 - ideal state metrics - from April 30 to May 22, 2019.

           Also at this meeting, Shannon Lessley, the Director of Curriculum and Instruction for HUUSD presented on Student Performance Data. Her presentation can be found here.
        Additionally, the board had an initial discussion of a draft Board Work Plan Timeline for April - June 2019 (included in board packet - see link below). This draft will be revised and reviewed at the April 24th meeting.
       Our next meeting is Wednesday, April 24th and expected to begin at 7:00 pm in the Harwood Union High School library. The Policy and Visioning committees are expected to meet at 6pm and 5:30 pm respectively, also in the library.  Please confirm time and place of meetings by visiting our website as start times and locations are subject to change.  Agendas are posted at least 2 days before the meeting. Our committees generally alternate meeting times and meet every other board meeting. For more information on the SMART goals that drive the work of these committees, check the HUUSD board web page.
       Please visit www.wwsu.org/huusd-board for board agendas and packets  (including committees that are meeting), detailed minutes, HUUSD Smart Goals for the 2018-2019 school year, and to find the link to watch board meetings.
        Thank you for your continued support and engagement.

Respectfully,
The HUUSD Board
Caitlin Hollister (Waterbury)  *Chair, Torrey Smith (Duxbury)  *Vice Chair, Hannah Clark (student rep, class of 2019), Jonathan Clough (Warren), Carlton Cummisky (student rep, class of 2021), Gabriel Gilman (Moretown), James Grace (Waterbury), Tim Jones (Fayston), Jake Lynn (student rep, class of 2020), Garett MacCurtain (Duxbury), Maureen McCracken (Waterbury), Theresa Membrino (Fayston), Kristen Rodgers (Moretown), Christine Sullivan (Waitsfield), Alexandra Thomsen (Waterbury), Jeremy Tretiak (Waitsfield), Rosemarie White (Warren)

Community Announcements

Please note that the opportunities/events listed below are not specifically endorsed or screened by school staff. As always, families should use their own standards and review processes to determine appropriate activities.

Fencing Instruction Adults, Teens, and Students grade 5 and up, Beginner - Advance (No experience necessary), Waitsfield Elementary School Gymnasium, April 23-May 28 (Tuesdays and Thursdays), 6:30PM-8:00PM, $50 Students - $125 Adults. Visit  https://sites.google.com/site/midvtfencing/ for additional information or contact Keith "Digger" Puffer midvtfencing@gmail.com

Art Show, Social, and Fundraiser for Waitsfield Children's Center   May 16, at The Mad River Barn, with a raffle drawing at 6:30.  The raffle prize is seven nights lodging in a one bedroom Condo anywhere within the Interval International Timeshare Network with locations worldwide and throughout New England donated by Eagles Resort. All ticket sales benefit The Waitsfield Children's Center. Fifteen percent of food sales will also benefit the Waitsfield Children's Center.

Harwood's Refugee Outreach Club is collecting raincoats, boots, and umbrellas for resettling families in Vermont. This drive will take place Friday, April 5th --Friday, April 26th. A donation box will be located in Waitsfield School Library. All donated products will be given to the VT U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI). These products will then be available to all USCRI clients. If you would prefer to donate money to our diaper/sanitary drive rather than to donate specific products checks can be made out to the Harwood Refugee Club and sent to Harwood (458 VT-100, Moretown, VT 05660 ). Any and all donations are greatly appreciated!

Harwood Middle School Update, April 12, 2019

HUMS Rapper connected the periodic chart element Lithium with his own rap song.
Amazing!  

National History Day Winners for their
Exhibit on Matthew Sheppard

Every year National History Day frames students’ research within a historical theme. The theme is chosen for the broad application to world, national, or state history and its relevance to ancient history or to the more recent past. The 2018-2019 theme is Triumph & Tragedy in History.

National History Day Award Winner
For his Essay on Martin Luther King 

Our HUMS Hildene essay award winner!  Her person was Emma Gonzalez, founder of the gun-control advocacy group Never Again MSD.   The 2019 Hildene Lincoln Essay Competition received 197 applications from all over Vermont, we are proud to have a HUMS winner.

HUMS Cares!  Vaping has been declared a pediatric epidemic and we are concerned about what that means for the health of our youth. The purpose of the presentations this past week (7th and 8th-grade students) was to raise awareness and educate about the harmful effects of vaping on the body and the developing brain, as well as identifying the risk and protective factors in their lives to help them make healthy choices.  Presenters included Jamie Blondin Prevention Educator, Central Vermont New Directions Coalition and Cathrin, a Harwood High School grade 10 student and advocate.

Curious about how we heat our school? 
HUMS scientists explore our school's wood chip boiler this past week.
Students learned a bit about how local wood sources
provide the fuel to heat our school and hot water.  The Messersmith Wood Chip smokestack
can be seen standing  behind our school and has in operation for close to a decade.   

MARK YOUR CALENDARS

Spring Student/Family Conferences are

scheduled for May 1st and 9th.

Please click on the link below and follow the directions to schedule a time/day.

Please contact Liz Hepp (lhepp@huusd.org) with questions.

Click here to schedule your spring 2019 conference

CALENDAR UPDATE

April 2019
April 15 - 19	April Break

• 8th Grade Dinner/Dance?cruise June 7th

More information coming soon

HUUSD School Board Meeting Recap 4/10

Dear members of our six town community,

At our last meeting on April 10, 2019, the Harwood Unified Union School District (HUUSD) Board took action on the five (5) items below (listed in order of the time in the meeting when the vote occurred):

• Approved the following items as part of the consent agenda:  Approve past meeting Minutes; Accept Board warrants totaling $252,916.35; Approved addition of May 15, 2019 and June 5, 2019 board meetings
• Adopted: That the administration be tasked with developing a report based on the 2018 Student Performance Data Workbook highlighting the positive and negative takeaways fr
• Adopted: That the board remove third grade from the classes offered at Fayston Elementary School for the 2019-20 school year due to exceptionally low class size.
• Adopted:

That the board direct the administration to prepare updated Education Cost per Equalized Pupil and Homestead tax projections to cover FY19 to FY29

AND that these projections be modeled after Appendix C1 and C6 of the Washington West SU Act 46 Study Report (Revised 4‐7‐2016)

AND that these projections assume no changes are made to the district configuration

AND that these projections are prepared in such a way that they can be updated to reflect various district configuration proposals as easily as possible

AND that these projections be made available to the board no later than May 15, 2019

AND that the report include information on the impact of a bond on the tax rate as was included in the March 4, 2019 board packet

AND that the formulae and assumptions use to reach the conclusions found are made available at a degree of specificity that renders the results reproducible.

• Moved the due date for board goal 2.2 - ideal state metrics - from April 30 to May 22, 2019.

Also at this meeting, Shannon Lessley, the Director of Curriculum and Instruction for HUUSD presented on Student Performance Data. Her presentation can be found here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12_2JmMuh3lPVmhy870ZzpaACBk-aZOWsm0XkJTBzCfk/edit#slide=id.p

Additionally, the board had an initial discussion of a draft Board Work Plan Timeline for April - June 2019 (included in board packet - see link below). This draft will be revised and reviewed at the April 24th meeting.

Our next meeting is Wednesday, April 24th and expected to begin at 7:00 pm in the Harwood Union High School library. The Policy and Visioning committees are expected to meet at 6pm and 5:30 pm respectively, also in the library.  Please confirm time and place of meetings by visiting our website as start times and locations are subject to change. Agendas are posted at least 2 days before the meeting. Our committees generally alternate meeting times and meet every other board meeting. For more information on the SMART goals that drive the work of these committees, check the HUUSD board web page.

Please visit www.wwsu.org/huusd-board for board agendas and packets  (including committees that are meeting), detailed minutes, HUUSD Smart Goals for the 2018-2019 school year, and to find the link to watch board meetings. The direct link to watch this and past recent meetings is: https://mrvtv.com/category/school-board-meetings/.  There is also an archive of older meetings which can be found here: https://archive.org/search.php?query=Harwood+Unified+Union+School+Board&sort=-date

Thank you for your continued support and engagement.

Respectfully,

The HUUSD Board

Caitlin Hollister (Waterbury)  *Chair

Torrey Smith (Duxbury)  *Vice Chair

Hannah Clark (student rep, class of 2019)

Jonathan Clough (Warren)

Carlton Cummisky (student rep, class of 2021)

Gabriel Gilman (Moretown)

James Grace (Waterbury)

Tim Jones (Fayston)

Jake Lynn (student rep, class of 2020)

Garett MacCurtain (Duxbury)

Maureen McCracken (Waterbury)

Theresa Membrino (Fayston)

Kristen Rodgers (Moretown)

Christine Sullivan (Waitsfield)

Alexandra Thomsen (Waterbury)

Jeremy Tretiak (Waitsfield)

Rosemarie White (Warren)

Community Announcements

Please note that the opportunities/events listed below are not specifically endorsed or screened by school staff. As always, families should use their own standards and review processes to determine appropriate activities.

Fencing Instruction Adults, Teens and Students grade 5 and up, Beginner - Advance (No experience necessary), Waitsfield Elementary School Gymnasium, April 23-May 28 (Tuesdays and Thursdays), 6:30PM-8:00PM, $50 Students - $125 Adults. Visit  https://sites.google.com/site/midvtfencing/ for additional information or contact Keith "Digger" Puffer midvtfencing@gmail.com

Harwood's Refugee Outreach Club is collecting rain coats, boots and umbrellas for resettling families in Vermont. This drive will take place Friday, April 5th --Friday, April 26th. A donation box will be located in Waitsfield School Library. All donated products will be given to the VT U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI). These products will then be available to all USCRI clients. If you would prefer to donate money to our diaper/sanitary drive rather than to donate specific products checks can be made out to the Harwood Refugee Club and sent to Harwood (458 VT-100, Moretown, VT 05660 ). Any and all donations are greatly appreciated!

Harwood Middle School Update, April 5, 2019

Curious about their future?  
7th and 8th Grade Students participated in our Annual
CBMS/HUMS Career Day Fair this past week.  Over 25 presenters were on hand
to offer their experiences/information on various career opportunities. 
Ask your HUMS student about what they want to be...  

Connected
8th Graders CBMS/HUMS connected through some games
led by Hosmer Point Director Jon Hammond this past week.
For many students, it was the first time they met their
2023 graduating classmates.  

Curious and Connected
HUMS 7th graders welcomed potential 6th-grade students to our school this past
week as part of HUUSD school choice program.  6th graders spent the day
shadowing 7th graders to get a feel of what it would be like to be at HUMS.  

HUMS Cares.
HUMS students took part in understanding the recent results of
our Youth Behavioral Risk Survey.  A group of 7th and 8th-grade student took part in various activities examine the results and plan to spread the word about what it means
for future action steps.  

What is Getting to Y:  GTY is an initiative where a few students analyze the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) and identify strengths and concerns within the WWSU school community. Once we've identified these areas together, we will use the results to think of some things we can change and do to improve the Harwood community. Still want to learn more? Getting to Y

  

What is the Youth Risk Behavior (YRBS) Survey: An anonymous survey usually issued in our district bi-annually asking students about risk-taking behavior. Middle and high school students all over the country take this survey every year! 

What are you asking my student to do:  The Getting to Y data analysis retreat at school led by peers and be part of solutions in making positive change in the Harwood community

HUUSD School District Survey:

What are YOUR 3 words?

      The HUUSD Visioning Committee would like input from our communities on developing a vision for our district. By taking this short survey, you can help shape the vision that will guide decision-making at all levels in our schools.  The survey is available online at:  www.surveymonkey.com/r/HUUSD_VISION and we ask for your reply by Friday, April 12. One of the key questions in the survey may require some thought. It asks: “What are three words that represent your hopes for what our school district will be like in the next several years?”  We have provided a word cloud on the district website - as well as in the survey itself - in case you need help getting into a frame of mind to answer this question, but we encourage you to use your own words! Your responses to this survey will help us decide what topics to include in the vision conversations we plan to host this spring toward more concrete vision and goals statements. There will also be links to the survey on the school district main page (wwsu.org) as well as the HUUSD board page (wwsu.org/huusd-board), and hard copies can be filled out at the local town office or library in all six towns.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Respectfully,

The HUUSD Board 

HUUSD Board Meeting Recap

Dear members of our six town community,

At our last meeting on March 27, 2019, the Harwood Unified Union School District (HUUSD) Board took action on the six (6) items below (listed in order of the time in the meeting when the vote occurred):

• Approved consent agenda including approving minutes of 3/13/19, annual meeting (3/4/19) minutes and an out of state field trip; and accepting vouchers #1193, 1194, 1204 and 1213 equaling $636,610.96
• Adopted these 2 motions related to the work plan and prek-12 plan after discussion and amendment:
• Task the Asset Management group to review the “Getting to yes” and “Questions” worksheets, compile the data, and report back to the board;
• Taskboard leadership, the superintendent, and board committee chairs to develop a draft timeline for the board to review; (related to the bond and the preK-12 plan) as early as April 10th but no later than April 24th.
• Appointed Tim Jones and Maureen McCracken to the Fayston School Principal Search Committee.
• Recapped, discussed, and heard public comment on the Superintendent’s report and approved incorporating such report into these minutes.The report can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1157YDyP44frIp0x07Gajy781Q-Jtlsx-/view
• Entered into executive session for purpose of discussing a grievance, because premature general public knowledge would clearly place the public body or a person involved at a substantial disadvantage. Upon returning to open meeting, no further action was taken.
• Entered into executive session for the purpose of discussing an employee's contract, because doing so in public session would clearly place that employee at a substantial disadvantage. Returning to open meeting, the Board upheld the Superintendent’s recommendation for disciplinary action regarding an employee. The Board denied a leave of absence request from an employee.
• Our next meeting is Wednesday, April 10th at 7:00 pm and will be held in the Harwood Union High School library. Starting at 6:00 pm, the Asset Management and Policy committees will meet, also in the library. Committees generally alternate meeting times and meet every other board meeting. For more information on the SMART goals that drive these committees, check the HUUSD board web page.
• Please visit www.wwsu.org/huusd-board for board agendas and packets  (including committees that are meeting), detailed minutes, HUUSD Smart Goals for the 2018-2019 school year, and to find the link to watch board meetings. Meetings can be viewed online here.  archives of older meetings are also available.
• Thank you for your continued support and engagement.

Respectfully,

The HUUSD Board Caitlin Hollister (Waterbury)  *Chair, Torrey Smith (Duxbury) *Vice Chair, Hannah Clark (student rep, class of 2019), Jonathan Clough (Warren), Carlton Cummisky (student rep, class of 2021), Gabriel Gilman (Moretown), James Grace (Waterbury), Tim Jones (Fayston), Jake Lynn (student rep, class of 2020), Garett MacCurtain (Duxbury), Maureen McCracken (Waterbury), Theresa Membrino (Fayston), Kristen Rodgers (Moretown), Christine Sullivan (Waitsfield), Alexandra Thomsen (Waterbury), Jeremy Tretiak (Waitsfield), Rosemarie White (Warren)

Community Announcements

Please note that the opportunities/events listed below are not specifically endorsed or screened by school staff. As always, families should use their own standards and review processes to determine appropriate activities.

SHREK THE MUSICAL we will be presented by Harwood Union, April 4&5 at 7:30pm, April 6 at 1:30 and 7:30pm. Tickets are $10/adult and $5/student.

Harwood's Refugee Outreach Club is collecting raincoats, boots and umbrellas for resettling families in Vermont. This drive will take place Friday, April 5th --Friday, April 26th. A donation box will be located in Waitsfield School Library. All donated products will be given to the VT U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI). These products will then be available too all USCRI clients. If you would prefer to donate money to our diaper/sanitary drive rather than to donate specific products checks can be made out to the Harwood Refugee Club and sent to Harwood (458 VT-100, Moretown, VT 05660 ). Any and all donations are greatly appreciated!

Fayston and Moretown School Fundraiser  Vermonte Carlo Night, April 6, Mt Ellen Lodge at Sugarbush. Doors open at 7pm.  Tickets are $25 at the door.  Music by The Grift and BBQ Buffet by Localfolk Smokehouse.

Valley Players Anniversary Season shows coming up: Harvey 5/31-6/16.  For a list of plays throughout their anniversary year, visit www.valleyplayers.com