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!