EMS Newsletter

Hello EMS Families and Caregivers,

You heard from me recently about a really tough day here at EMS. We continue to work through the impacts of that incident with our students, our staff, and our broader community. This is important work, and it remains focused on our highest priority here at Edmunds: building a safe and secure learning environment for our children.

However, I want to take this opportunity today to highlight some of the incredible work teachers and students are doing right now in our school. Only through the nurturing of positive culture and relationships can we make the kind of lasting change we need.

So, some highlights:

- You may have seen Ms. Wyndorf’s 6th grade Humanities class mentioned in Superintendent Flanagan’s Community Update last week. For any who missed it:

Ms. Wyndorf’s 6th-grade Humanities class kicked off Black History, Present, and Futures Month by each dedicating their learning to someone. While it may sound like a small thing, this is an excellent example of deep learning as students make personal connections to their learning. As these students go about their learning, they will have a real-world connection to their work and a concrete example of the reason this learning is important.

- Community Time meetings this week kicked off the COMMUNITY CARE CHALLENGE!

Each Community Time in the school worked together to identify an area of the school that needed attention and improvement, and then started planning for how to attend to that need. One group is making snacks for hungry students. Another is building and painting new trash receptacles to place in the stairwells. And a number of Community Time groups identified our school bathrooms as areas that need some love. This has led to the birth of our Better Bathroom Initiative - a student-led, adult-guided program of bathroom beautification and care. Special thanks to our Property Services Dept. for their support and promise of resources and to our Design-Tech Instructor Eric Schoembs for guidance and know-how. Students will be working in partnership with adults to make physical and cosmetic improvements to our student bathrooms in ways that will make the spaces more functional, more pleasant, and increase student ownership and care of areas that we all use every day.

- YPAR CLASS is analyzing data and proposing solutions.

EMS has two elective classes called YPAR, which is an acronym standing for Youth Participatory Action Research. In YPAR class, students go through a formal, guided process to identify a real issue in our community, develop a line of inquiry into the origins of that issue, collect data, analyze that data, and then propose and implement data-driven solutions. It’s as impressive as it sounds.

Right now, our 7th and 8th grade YPAR classes have been partnering with our District Data Team and Data and Information Experts from UVM to figure out how best to quantitatively and qualitatively define and describe issues ranging from Belonging to Racial Equity to Queer Liberation in our school community. I receive monthly updates from a student spokesperson tasked with communication responsibilities for the group keeping me informed of their progress and asking for my support in accessing school and district resources for their work. Today I got an email from one of the smaller workgroups requesting a meeting to go over their report. It included survey results, data analysis, charts, and a narrative summary. I know undergraduates who would not be able to pull this off. Absolutely amazing.

This is what we are working on. This is what we are working for. This, and so many other things, are why we have to get all of this right. We have had over 100 days of school so far this year. On two of those days, we have had violence at dismissal time. That is two too many. We are responding to this incident seriously. And we are addressing the broader challenges of our school and our city by working to build, proactively, a safer, more positive, kind, and connected culture at Edmunds Middle School.

Thank you for all of your engagement and support as we continue this vital work.

John

1. The Warmth Support Program - In a nutshell, it is a program that provides support to families who

1. are within 5-7 days of running out of bulk fuel

2. are in danger of having your utility service disconnected

2. 8th Grade Class Selection for High School

1. Ms. Hulbert will be working with the 8th graders to select their classes

3. Ms. Brady is beginning the 5th to 6th grade transition.

According to a law passed by the Vermont Legislature, schools are to provide free condoms to students in grades 7-12. No student age 12 or older will be refused access to condoms through this program. Minors age 12 and older in Vermont have a legal right to access a full range of reproductive and sexual health services without parent/guardian permission. Minors age 12 and older are provided access to condoms in a variety of settings, and may purchase them without parental consent. Condoms and dams are available to all students in BSD Middle and High Schools, so 6th graders who are not yet 12 will also have access. We encourage parents to have a conversation with their middle and high school students about condoms and dams, their purpose, and proper use.

Burlington School District believes it is important to provide preventative health resources to students. Condoms and dental dams are available for all middle and high school students. Condoms will be placed in areas such as the Health and Guidance Offices, to allow students safe and confidential access. Instructions and educational information will be available to students in addition to information that is provided in the Health Education curriculum. Together with parents/guardians, health care providers and trusted adults, we can promote and protect the health of our students.

Thank you,

Carla

Thanks to all who came to the first sixth grade Parent/Caregiver meet up. We were excited to see more than 20 parents come together to learn from one another. We talked about strategies for connecting when our kids seem to want to spend more time alone, or with friends, or on a device... We had the opportunity to build new social connections and to meet families of our kids' new friends. We heard that we are not alone in some of our struggles, and also got to share some of our successes :) Finally, together we explored our kids' unique qualities as they become more independent.

The next meet-up will be on Tuesday, March 19th at 6pm again in the EMS library. We will continue through the Five Basics of Parenting Adolescents on the MIT Raising Teens website https://hr.mit.edu/static/worklife/raising-teens/five-basics.html

with a focus on how we "Monitor and Observe" our kids.

If you didn't make it to the first session, don't worry- each topic is meant to stand alone. We appreciate as many new and different perspectives as we can get to enrich these conversations. Also, please feel comfortable to come and listen- there is no pressure to share.

Sarah Guth sarahgut@gmail.com 802-338-0030(Charlie, Voyager)

Stan Weinberger Stanley.weinberger@gmail.com 802-557-1840 (Matt, Nia)

Vanessa Berman melamede@gmail.com (202) 329-5266 (Hazel-Nia and Alana-Voyager)

Adam Hudson adam.hudson@gmail.com (202) 841-4842 (Patrick, Unity)