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| VRP MEETING DATES 2008-2009 Working Group Meetings: tba Governance Board Meetings:* tba Principal's Retreat 2008 tba VRP Fall Retreat 2008 * NOTE: Representation from all VRP sites is required at ALL Governance Board Mtgs. Missed attendance at 2 required meetings means your membership will be forfeited. |
NEWS & UPCOMING EVENTS
Fund for Teachers fellowships: A total of 5 VRP teachers applied for these grants. Nationally 35 applications came in and 11 teachers received funding. Three of the VRP group were awarded Fellowships. [www.fundforteachers.org] Tina Fearon, a first grade teacher from Barnet will be working on ways to improve her teaching of geography and geology by taking a trip this summer to a number of US National Parks. Tina's first graders will be helping to plan her trip. She will be taking along a stuffed mascot from Barnet who will write a blog/ journal of events and post regular pictures of himself from various locations. Tina will be sharing her learning with the teaching team in Barnet and incorporating her learning directly into her curriculum. Donna Stone and Lynn Talamini, grade 1/2 teachers from Cabot will be traveling to New Zealand to improve their teaching of math and literacy. They will visit 3 different schools who will be in session during the July/August. The schools, one of which is rural, all have exemplary math and literacy programs. Lynn and Donna have been implementing NZ stategies in their classroom for the last several years, seeing these schools first hand will have a direct impact on their teaching of both subjects. Other teachers who have been awarded fellowships will also be taking exciting trips such as traveling to South Africa to volunteer for CARE, developing a photographic journey through Ireland or going to the Galapagos Islands to improve the teaching of science. We hope that next year, with a longer application timeframe, we will have a larger number of applicants and be able to award more fellowships to Vermont teachers. We wish the 3 of you exciting journeys ahead and we encourage those of you who did not receive funding to reapply. Download Flyer
  The Flow of History is sponsoring a number of upcoming professional development opportunities. Visit their Web site for more information and connections to resources that support the teaching of US and Vermont History. VRP teachers are developing curriculum units which are available on this site.
 Valley Quest Workshops Valley Quest deepens knowledge of local geography and builds bridges between classroom and community, youth and elders, the past and the present. “No other classroom activity has connected students to their community like Valley Quest!” –Mary Bouchard, Special Educator Contact Simon Brooks, Valley Quest Assistant Valley Quest Program, Vital Communities 104 Railroad Row, White River Junction, VT 05001 802-291-9100 ext 207 simon@vitalcommunities.org VRP NEWS  A MUST READ! "Special Challenges of the 'No Child Left Behind' Actfor Rural Schools and Districts"
by Lorna Jimerson, Ed.D., Policy Analyst
Across the country, states are concentrating efforts to meet the requirements and the spirit of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The implementation provisions and timelines are demanding and challenging for all districts, but NCLB is particularly daunting for rural and small districts. This paper, written as part of a series on NCLB for the Education Writers Association (available at http://www.ewa.org/infocenter/topics/), outlines the characteristics of rural schools and districts that create special problems in implementing the legislation and summarizes the major challenges of the NCLB for these districts. Download "Special Challenges", in PDF format from the Rural School and Community Trust. Visit the RSCT on the Web for additional resources–The Rural School and Community Trust Trash on the Lawn Day Thetford Academy and Harwood Union joined high schools around  Vermont in holding a "Trash on the Lawn Day." For this event, sponsored by the Vermont Association of Recyclers, all the school's trash for one day was collected, spread out, and sorted for an "audit." VISTA worker Joel Breakstone worked with students to organize this event. Students in Diane Ferriter's math classes analyzed data and graphed results. The next step will be composting food waste, in cooperation with the hot lunch program and the Academy's Agricultural Sciences program. View Photos
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Vermont Premieres Lights, Camera, Leadership! 
Students become a production team charged with creating a video of an important issue in their community, capturing this issue from past, present and future perspectives. The topic
A PREMIER NATIONAL EVENT
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