'Get wet and get studying': Elementary students study waterways

Good, dirty fun prompted a parade of fourth- and fifth-graders to stop traffic on Pine Street in Burlington in late May. The kids toted nets, rubber wading boots and clipboards.“Get wet and get studying,” announced their teacher, Matt Hajdun. Hajdun’s students had been eyeing the lake, their creek and their community for the better part of the school year. Their efforts were funded by the Lake Champlain Basin Program. Among the common goals: getting outside.Another goal: Cleaner water for the next generation. “We really wanted kids to recognize that they have a voice in making sure the lake remains healthy,” Hajdun said.

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JetBlue helps cement University of Vermont program with Bronx high schools

Approximately 30 students and faculty members from New York City high schools were delayed for close to four hours enroute to Burlington International Airport one day last week. The arrival time was off, but the price was just right. The flights were all free of charge, courtesy of JetBlue Airways. The schools have been in partnership with UVM since 2000, when UVM reached out to the high school in an attempt to diversify its student enrollment.

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MAU moves ahead on school-farm link

The Mount Anthony Union School Board's Agricultural Committee has met for the first time to discuss how the prime agricultural lands that are part of the middle school campus have been used to date and how they might be used in the future to educate students. When the District 8 Environmental Commission issued a permit for the construction of the middle school in 2002, the decision included a promise from the school district about the way the middle school and the Southwest Vermont Career Development Center would work together to best use the prime soil on the site.

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94 Vermont schools fall short in assessment

Thirty-one percent of Vermont public schools missed the academic progress benchmark set under a federal school-reform law designed to prod students to full proficiency in reading and math by 2014. The Vermont Education Department issued the annual report card for schools Tuesday as required under the No Child Left Behind Act. Once again most of the 94 schools that did not make adequate yearly progress had significant populations of low-income and disabled students.

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Using federal funds, Vt. schools apply for a makeover

Four out of 10 Vermont schools tagged in March by the state as "persistently low-achieving" and eligible for more federal aid because of the designation have agreed to apply for the funding. The letters of intent to seek a piece of $8.5 million in federal stimulus dollars for education are trickling into the Vermont Department of Education, even though the department's commissioner said the option the schools are choosing — a transformation model that requires the firing of the principal in some cases — isn't favorably looked on by state education officials.

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Update on Friday, May 14, 2010 at 10:25AM by VCF Staff

The Fair Haven Union High School Board will apply to the state for between $300,000 and $500,000 in federal money to improve its students' academic performance.

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Johnson State College to drop day care

 The child care center at Johnson State College will close June 30, a victim of budget cuts expected to sweep through the state college system. The state-licensed Child Development Center, which Johnson State President Barbara Murphy called "a regional resource," has served children in the area for about 20 years. The enrollment is 31 children, 11 who attend full-time. Seven of the children are from families affiliated with the college.

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Citizens Bank Foundation invests $5,000 in Lund Family Center's education program

Citizens Bank Foundation recently made a major investment in Lund Family Center’s work to improve the educational outcomes for pregnant or parenting young women.   The Foundation issued a $5,000 grant for Lund’s New Horizons Education program, which annually offers high school, G.E.D. education and college support to more than 40 pregnant or parenting young women ages 12 to 27.

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Mount Anthony Union discusses student goals

The Mount Anthony Union School Board is taking the first steps toward answering the question, "What do we want our students to know and be able to do by graduation?" The School Board is working to renew its accreditation with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and move to a "zero-based" budgeting process for fiscal year 2012. Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union Superintendent Catherine McClure explained that answering the question about where they wanted students to be would help guide the process of zero-based budget creation. McClure said the board and district would be "creating a whole new middle school and high school environment."

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Vt. won't seek federal education grant funds

Vermont will not seek millions of dollars in a federal grant program aimed at improving failing schools, joining a handful of states in dropping out of the "Race to the Top" program despite strapped budgets. The competitive grant requires states to link teacher pay to student performance and invest in charter schools, which would require policy and legislative changes in Vermont, commissioner Armando Vilaseca said Monday. After spending hundreds of hours reviewing the application and program, the state will not apply, Vilaseca said.

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More class, no recess: Middle school changes address failing students

Rutland Middle School students won't have recess, class times will be longer and there will be a mandatory extra help period beginning next school year. School administrators and the Rutland School Board are backing a plan that will change students' schedules at the start of the 2010-11 school year — one that includes eight-minute-longer classes and students taking core classes such as English, math and science at different times during the school week. The intent is to improve student performance and make the most of teacher instruction, according to John Beerworth, a physical education teacher at the school who is part of a committee that studied the prospect of a new schedule for more than a year.

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Champlain Elementary students net more than 100 soccer balls for Afghans

It's not safe in there. Caution-tape alerts students at Champlain Elementary School in Burlington to the knee-high hazard in Tammy Charbonneau's office: a highly unstable cluster of wall-to-wall soccer balls. Charbonneau, who teaches physical education, appeared far from perturbed Wednesday afternoon. Kids at the school, she beamed, had rounded up more than 100 balls to be shipped to Afghan neighborhoods."It's 'power networking' in the community that made this happen," she said. "Every time I look around I see more balls. Where'd they all come from?"

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Online magazine for teens takes flight in Williston

The online magazine Firefly features media about, and often contributed by, Vermont's high school and college students. One student regularly writes a column on vegetarianism and another reviews movies; "Shutter Island" received 2 1/2 popcorns under the reviewer's rating system. A picture of a dog pulling a man on a skateboard won a funny photo contest. "One thing we've had a lot of help with is our high school scoreboard," said Stephanie Choate, the magazine's editor. The magazine was launched in January by Marianne and Paul Apfelbaum, the publishers of the Williston Observer.

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Career center invited to conference

A new Windham Regional Career Center program is being recognized as one way to help transform high school education across New England. The career center, and Milton High School, have been chosen to represent Vermont at a regional conference this week. Representatives from Windham Regional Career Center will be at the New England Secondary School Consortium on April 9 in Nashua, N.H., to talk about the school’s collegiate high school program that allows high school students to take college courses and receive college credits which can be transferred upon graduating high school.

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Forbes praises South Burlington schools

For parents seeking a quality education for their children without paying exorbitant housing prices, South Burlington is the place to be, according to Forbes. The magazine published a list of America's "25 best schools for the housing buck" Tuesday, which ranked South Burlington fourth in the $200,000- $399,999 category. Forbes sought to show parents where children could receive the best education by ranking the five best school districts in five ranges of home prices. Edina, Minn., earned the No. 1 spot in South Burlington's price range.

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Waterbury LEAPs into action

Earlier this month, file folders and their contents covered a library table at Crossett Brook Middle School. Around them sat a handful of people, evaluating bids to install a 14 kW photovoltaic project on the gym roof. Ordinary people — and extraordinary motivation — made it happen, said Duncan McDougall chairman of Waterbury Local Energy Action Partnership, or LEAP. In four years, the group has ushered in an impressive line of collaborations between businesses, schools, municipal boards and nonprofits

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