Dear CVU Community: A CVU teacher shared this podcast with me earlier in the week. Within a few moments of listening, I knew I wanted to share it with our community at large. The title is a downer (Why Are American Teens So Unhappy? How Do We Solve This Crisis?), but I found the dialogue to be interesting, accurate (based on my own observations), actionable, and even uplifting. In particular, I appreciated the nuanced look at technology, mental health, the family system, and the role of connection as a protective factor in students’ lives. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts if anyone wants to meet or just share an email. Students, I’m especially interested in your take.

And sometimes, solving the crisis means we just need to have some fun together. Check out the pics below of the the annual Kevin Riell Master's Tourney! Winner will be announced in next week's Celebrations.

April 12: 8:45-12:30 11 SAT, 10 iReady ELA, 9 Cognia ELA, 12 Exit Experience (afternoon)

April 19: 8:45-12:30 11 Cognia Sci, 10 iReady Math, 9 Cognia Math, 12 Exit Experience (afternoon)

April 24-28: Spring Break

The inaugural SEEDS BIPOC Career Day was a huge success! Thirty-five students from CVU and SB met for the three-hour event at the Pizzagalli Center on April 6th. They enjoyed a delicious lunch, catered by Parkside Cafe, asked thoughtful questions to a panel of twelve professionals across various fields, and engaged in authentic conversations with these adults during small group breakout sessions. Students and adults left the event feeling grateful and inspired...and excited to have won some cool prizes! We'd like to thank the Shelburne Museum for donating the space, The Val Gardner Trust and the VT NEA for compensating our speakers, and CVSD/CVU, Bageshree Blasius and Christina Deeley for coordinating the catering. We would also like to give a special shout out to SEEDS Leaders Iycis McCauley, Dayanara Galvez and Mario Robinson for their fantastic work emceeing the event. And finally, a huge thank you to our guest speakers for sharing their experiences and being real with our students: Will Kasso Condry, Connor Cyrus, Kayla Loving, Debbie Archer, Mugabo Uwilingiyamana, Bageshree Blasius, Rene Sanchez, Diantha Francis, Tia Ganguly, and Algenis Garcia.

From Katie Antos-Ketcham: I’d like to celebrate everyone involved in the “Girl & A Bike '' project to help provide bicycles and scholarships for girls in Malawi through Creative Solutions for the Environment (CSE). As we go to press, EnAct has raised enough money to purchase 25 bicycles! Thank you to all of the students who made friendship bracelets and an extra big thank you to Isabelle Raby for donating so many beautiful, handmade earrings for the fundraisers on Thursday! And thank you to everyone who baked and came to our Coffee House on Thursday night. We had some great conversations about climate justice, educational accessibility, gender equality, and human rights. Thank you to Maddie Connery, Connor Brien and Ethan Cook for the music and to Julia Lamorey for the laughs. A big thanks to Tess Everett and Iris Miller-Bottoms for being our emcees for the night. Lastly, so many advisories participated in the Solidarity Walk during C3 today (Friday), and the winning advisory from our raffle will be announced on Monday. I also have a big thanks to Abby Niquette and Anna Dauerman for all of their hard work planning these events (and for your poetry). You are both superstars! Finally, one last big thanks to our community. We are so grateful for your support! If you’d still like to donate, it’s not too late. Here’s our GoFundMe.

CVU's Scholars Bowl team finished its 22-23 season as a semi-finalist in the State tournament playoffs, held at Montpelier High School on Saturday, April 1st. CVU started as the 6th seed. We won two play-in matches by scores of 480-105 over BFA St. Albans and 425-180 over Rice. We then defeated the #3 seed, South Burlington, 330-205 with a big final round surge. This put us into the semi-finals against #2 Burlington. We played well and kept it close until the final minutes, falling 420-310 to the school that would end up winning the State championship final.

CVU's Scholars Bowl has now reached the "Final Four" of the State tournament playoffs 16 times in the past 21 years, more than any other Vermont school. Our varsity finishes the year with a 32-10 record, marking the 8th time in the last 9 seasons that we have won 30 or more matches. We won the PHAT tournament in December, the JV State championship in January and finished 2nd in the other two major tournament events of the year.

Playing for CVU on April 1st included the following students:

12th grade - Sam Kunin, Kai Jenkins-Mui, Ava Rohrbaugh

11th grade - Frank Fidler, Elias Leventhal, Colin Ravlin

10th grade - Jacob Graham, Nolan Sandage

9th grade - Leah Rauch, Charles Redmond

Coach - John Bennett

Assistant Coach - Kiran MacCormick

Congratulations to Deaglan Searson, who has won a National Scholastic Art gold medal for their work, "Subway Ride." Quite an honor!

From Nick Cowles at Shelburne Orchards - I’m so grateful for these awesome people!! They were all fun to be around and they worked hard right through to the end. It’s a big job. Thank you guys!!!

CVU Nexus attended a student summit for personalized learning at UVM on Wednesday. Students shared their work, saw work from students around the state and participated in workshops. Libby Manning (Equine Medicine), Xander Olszewski, (Creative Writing), Zane Martenis, (Muay Thai Kickboxing), and Oscar Anderson (Flyin’ Ryan Ambassadorship) presented from CVU. It was a great celebration of student driven learning!

This week on the pod we talk with Amy Dodge from Dual Enrollment VT. Lots of important information for students and families to consider before registering and enrolling.

Spotify Link

Apple Link

CVU alum Jeremy Bessette delivering a donated chicken coop from Shelburne Farms that will be converted into a Slovenian bee house by Field and Forest student Burgess Gove.

NCAA Basketball Bracket Winners - left to right

Sue Jipner - Commissioner

Sharon Ogden - Men's full bracket winner

Katie Kuntz - Women's full bracket winner

Debbie Seaton - Men's round by round bracket winner

Chittenden Core and our CVU Librarians kicked off Librarian Appreciation Day in a co-presentation at the 2023 Vermont Library Conference.

Cari and Helen on the Mt. Philo "Path to Wellness"

Don't miss this month's CVSD Virtual Town Hall on Wednesday, April 12th at 6:30 pm. The Virtual Town Hall will be facilitated by Williston DEI coach, Mike Fife, with the following focus: We will have a conversation about how Restorative Practices (RP) intersect with DEI work. We will begin with a conversation about attendees' experiences with RP and then move on to a question-and-answer session with RP experts who are doing this work in schools. We are hoping to be joined by staff from Up for Learning and Evan Sivo (CVSD).

Please visit the CVSD DEI site for the Zoom meeting information. It can also be found on the district's website calendar. We look forward to seeing you online!

All school districts in Vermont have been asked to send this form out to families/caregivers.