Bobcat Bulletin 5/31/20

School News:

Parade

• The Moretown Staff is planning a End of the Year Parade to wave everyone off into their summers.  We are finalizing a route, but will be driving through on the evening of June 8, 2020.
• The parade will end at the Big Picture for the 6th grade graduation ceremony (at dark).

Staffing Updates

• We have had some staffing shifts at MES for the 2020-2021 school year
• Lisa Harvey is retiring and boy, will we miss her!  
• Heather VonTrapp will join us as our new art teacher.  Heather is no stranger to Moretown, as she is one of our preschool teachers, and has taught Art at Warren for a number of years.
• Stefi Clymer is moving to a different job in the district.  We will miss her terribly, but wish her all the best in her next adventure.
•  Jean Goldhammer will join us, coming from Fayston Elementary School.  She will round out the 3/4 team with Patty Riccardi.
• We will also say goodbye to Robin Harris, who has spent three years at Moretown in our preschool program.  She is off to enjoy grandparenting, we wish her well.

Step up

• Placement letters were sent electronically to families of students transitioning to first, third and fifth grades. included in the letter is the date of Step Up day at MES; Thursday, June 4.  Your child's teacher will reach out with more information about what step up will look like that day.

Last Day

• As I sent out on Friday, the last student day of school for this year will be Tuesday June 9.

MEALS

  
 HUUSD Food & Nutrition will have its last delivery on Friday, June 12th.

 Meals after June 12th  If you haven’t yet, please fill in this form if you believe your child will need meals during the summer. Meals will be prepared by the Barre School District Food Service and distributed by volunteers at the Congregational Church in Waterbury. The Mad River Valley Food Shelf is organizing volunteers to deliver food to students in need in the MRV area that are struggling with transportation.
        Students in need of a meal from all our schools will be able to get free meals in this location, not only Waterbury residents. Meals will be free for all children 18 and under, independently of family income and school lunch status.  Meals will be offered in a curbside delivery style. The delivery schedule will be similar to what we have now, 3 days a week (M/W/F). Time is yet to be determined. More logistics information will be provided by June 12th. 

Best,
Our HUUSD Food & Nutrition Team

Summer
Summer @ MES:

To follow up on a letter that went out to parents recently from HUUSD:

The HUUSD administration team has made the very difficult decision to cancel summer programming at all HUUSD schools.  We labored and dialogued a great deal over this decision, and it is being made in light of how challenging it will be to safely run our at-school programs and abide by the long list of protocols put out by the Vermont government.   

Students receiving Extended School Year Services (ESY) through their IEPs will have remote summer services- more details to follow. 

MECA summer camp not be housed at MES this summer. Please contact Moie and the NOW (Neck of the Wood) crew directly if you have additional questions, as I know they are planning for summer programming off grounds.

More details on 2020 Summer School during the COVID Pandemic can be found here.

PTO News
A huge thank you to our PTO to help us fundraise to make sure the 6th graders have a great graduation.
https://www.facebook.com/MoretownPTO/

Community News/Opportunities

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.

Please share this information

Wendy S. Hubbard, RN

From: Jenna O'Donnell <jodonnell@hungerfreevt.org>
and Genna Williams

Thank you for helping spread the word about the new Farmers To Families Food Box Program. New distribution dates for June 1^st-5^th have been added to the schedule. Please click here to see the full schedule and help us spread the word to anyone who could use this assistance. We would prefer that you direct people to that link for the most up to date distribution details as this is a new program and details are emerging as we speak. This will ensure that everyone has access to the most accurate information possible. 

Thank you again for helping spread the word!

Genna

 Genna Williams
Rutland Branch Manager
Pronouns: she, her, hers
Vermont Foodbank 92 Park St. Rutland, VT 05701
o. 1-802-747- 9025 |c. 1.802-498-8353

Web | Facebook | Twitter | Blog

You can help our neighbors facing hunger. Give a meal, transform a life.

Virtual Girl Scout Programs: The Green and White Mountain Girl Scout organization is fortunate to be able to continue offering programs to girls and volunteers virtually for an at home enrichment experience. Free information sessions to explore the programs are held on Mondays at 3pm and Wednesdays at 6pm. To register visit: bit.ly/GSGWMVirutalopenhouse. For further information contact customer care at 888-474-9686 or customercare@girlscoutsgwm.org

School Board Updates

HUUSD Budget Vote Scheduled for June 16th:

The HUUSD Board of Directors is seeking approval by the voters for a 2020-21 School Budget of $39,751,941. 

This represents a 2.98% increase in total expenditures over last year’s budget, with a reduction in education spending of 0.34%.

An election will be held on June 16th, 2020. Voters are strongly encouraged to request ballots by mail by calling or emailing their Town Clerks. Additionally, in person voting will also be available in each town on June 16th.

The new proposed budget reflects a reduction of $20,401 from the defeated Town Meeting Day budget presented in March. One of the key differences is that it does not include any school reconfigurations or middle school merger. School configurations will remain status quo.

To achieve this, staffing was adjusted to better reflect current student enrollment and some types of discretionary spending such as additional professional development and field trips were frozen for one year. It can be confusing how a 0.34% decrease in education spending can still result in a 2.9% increase in overall spending. This is largely due to a double digit increase to the cost of health care, previously negotiated pay increases for our employees, and the effect of inflation on almost every component of our budget. 

For more information, please join us on Wednesday, May 27th at 6pm via Zoom for our Budget Hearing.  Login information as well as other reference materials can be found at huusd.org. Thank you for your ongoing support of our schools, The HUUSD Board (email us at cen-huusdboard@huusd.org).