Check out this month's Middle School Newsletter to hear about what our students are learning, see photos from the month, and more! Dr. Harryman has included a letter to families on the front page.
A reminder that the OCSU PTCA will be hosting their annual Fall Festival on October 24th. We are still looking for individuals interested in hosting trick-or-treat tables. Please fill out this form if you’re interested, or share the form with anyone else who may be interested:
https://forms.gle/RcUjunEtKCvzMtxG8
More information is in the flyer. We hope to see everyone there!
Congratulations to the OCSU Middle School Cross Country team on a great day at the Woods Trail Run at Thetford Academy this weekend!
Avery from Glover ran a time of 16:39, setting a new personal record by an incredible 1 minute and 8 seconds!
Elise from Albany finished in 19:28, setting a new personal record by 10 seconds!
Carter from Albany ran 11:18, setting a new personal record by 26 seconds!
Three of our four runners set new personal records! Congratulations to the team for representing OCSU with great effort, determination, and sportsmanship.
Keep up the great work, runners! 🏃♀️🏃
Some shots from the month of September! Students have been working hard in class, trying new things, and building community.
Don't forget that we have Open House tonight from 4:00-6:00 with a free Harvest Dinner with food from our garden. We hope to see you there!
Albany wolves run together, rise together, and have fun together!
LAKE REGION YOUTH BASKETBALL is hosting sign ups:
When: Saturday, October 17th from 2pm-5pm
Where: in front of the Orleans school
Who: children in grades K-6th from:
Brownington
Barton
Glover
Orleans
Albany
Irasburg
Westmore
Sign up forms will be sent home with district students this week. Please DO NOT return forms to your students' school.
For any and all questions please email lakeregionyouthbasketball@gmail.com
Want to help? We are looking for volunteers to run tables or assist with setup and cleanup. It is a great way to join the fun and lend a helping hand. See the link below for more details.
https://forms.gle/Ck91uMDy5hiDLZEM6
the person showing unsafe behavior
students and staff impacted by the unsafe behavior
the school building and related property
Threat assessment is not an adversarial process; many threats are a cry for help. Having a team approach with a clear process allows for the safety of everyone involved. The process is designed to address, evaluate, and manage threatening behavior and troubling situations that may impact school safety. OCSU’s guide is based on best practices created by the U.S. Secret Service & U.S. Department of Education, and the need to follow these best practices are mandated by the Senate and House.
To learn more about behavioral threat assessment in OCSU, please visit this website. To report a potential incident please do one of the following:
Contact your school principal or the superintendent of schools (1-802-525-1204)
Email the team at: crisis@ocsu.org
Use our dedicated crisis form
Dear OCSU Families,
As we continue our Strong Start September, I want to share two important aspects of keeping our school communities safe: emergency preparedness and weather-related decisions. Each of our schools follows Vermont Agency of Education requirements and maintains an Emergency Operations Plan specific to its building and community. These plans address medical emergencies, severe weather, building security, evacuation, sheltering in place, and family reunification. We review our plans annually with local emergency responders and practice age-appropriate safety procedures with students and staff. Families will receive advance notification of scheduled safety drills. Our goal is to ensure that every student feels safe, supported, and ready to learn.
With the colder months approaching, I also want to share how we make decisions about school closings, delayed openings, and early dismissals. As you know, weather in the Northeast Kingdom can vary significantly from one town to another! To make weather related decisions, I typically begin at about 3:45 am to closely monitor forecasts and warnings for each one of our communities, looking at predicted conditions mile by mile and hour by hour. I also work closely with our transportation coordinator at Butler’s Bus Service, who gathers firsthand information from town road crews and bus drivers. After multiple check-ins with our transportation coordinator, conversations with neighboring superintendents, and continued monitoring of conditions, I make the final decision. While we cannot predict every change in the weather, the safety of our students, staff, and drivers is always my highest priority. Please reach out and let me know if you have any suggestions about how I might improve the process of making these decisions.
I know that changes to the school day can create challenges for families, and I sincerely apologize for that inconvenience. Whenever possible, morning decisions will be communicated by 5:45 a.m. through local news outlets, social media, and our automated notification system, which sends voice calls, text messages, and emails. Please ensure your child’s school has your current contact information and that you have a backup plan for unexpected changes. We are fortunate to have a dedicated team at Butler’s Bus Service who care deeply about safely transporting our students. Occasionally, staffing or other challenges may require routes to be combined, schedules to change, or a route to be canceled. Having a plan for alternative transportation, childcare, or early pickup will help your family navigate these situations.
Finally, I want to express my sincere gratitude to all of our OCSU families. Keeping our schools safe and our students ready to learn takes all of us working together. Whether you are updating your contact information, preparing a backup plan, reinforcing safety expectations with your child, or showing patience when plans change, your partnership matters so very much. Thank you for the trust you place in us each day and for the many ways you support our schools. We are grateful to be part of your children’s lives and look forward to a wonderful school year together!
Warmly,
Jackie Ramsay-Tolman
Your OCSU Superintendent
Irasburg Bus Route Update
Families who live in Irasburg, please be aware that there has been a change to the bus routes. Transportation has moved from three buses to two buses, with Jessie and Larry serving the routes.
For the next few days, if possible, please have your child outside and ready 10 minutes earlier than their normal pickup time. This will help support a smooth transition as the drivers work through the new routes and schedules.
Thank you for your patience and flexibility as we work through this transition!
There are open school board seats. If you reside in Orleans or Westmore and are interested in joining the local school board, please reach out to Lisa Worden for more information.
Our four athletes ran hard, supported one another, and represented OCSU with pride. They also established our first 1.65-mile team records:
Boys
Carter 11:44
Conner 14:00
Girls
Avery 17:47
Elise 19:30
Congratulations to our runners on an outstanding first meet and for becoming the first athletes to represent OCSU in cross-country! The future is bright for this new program!
See what's been happening at our school this week!
🏀 Physical Education focused on updating rubrics for our student grading system, SmartScore.
🎨 Art Education worked on curriculum mapping.
🎶 Music Education focused on classroom management and curriculum mapping for our middle schools.
We love seeing our Allied Arts team use their time to learn, collaborate, and continue finding ways to support our students! ❤️
Dear OCSU Families and Community,
Every day across Orleans Central, our students walk into classrooms where our amazing teachers help them learn, grow, think, question, problem-solve, and discover what they are capable of. There is so much that goes into making those moments successful, and this week I wanted to share a little about the work happening across OCSU to support strong teaching and learning in every classroom.
Student learning is at the heart of why we are here. Every student, no matter which OCSU school or classroom they are in, must have access to the essential learning they need, and it is our responsibility to make sure they learn. Our teachers know their students and bring their own strengths, expertise, and professional judgment to this work every day. Across OCSU, we are becoming clearer and more consistent about what students must learn, how we will know when they’ve learned, and what we will do when they need more time, additional support, or greater challenge. Our responsibility doesn’t end with teaching the content; it includes paying attention to whether students are learning and responding when they need something different.
That is why we have intentionally provided additional time this year for teachers to work and learn together. They are identifying the most essential learning for students, looking together at evidence of student progress, sharing instructional practices, and planning how best to respond to their students. This time allows teachers to strengthen instruction and respond more effectively to each student’s learning needs. It also gives our teachers the opportunity to learn from one another and ensures they have the clarity, time, and support to do this important work well.
We have much to be proud of in our schools, and we also know there is important work ahead of us. We want more of our students to demonstrate proficiency in literacy, mathematics, and all of the content areas (including unified arts!). This year, we have specific OCSU learning goals connected directly to our strategic plan and student achievement. While assessment results are one way we understand how our students are doing, this work is about much more than test scores. It is about making sure our students develop the knowledge, skills, confidence, and opportunities they will need throughout their lives. Accomplishing this takes all of us, with teachers providing strong instruction, students engaging in their learning, and families continuing to support and encourage learning at home.
The work we are doing is grounded in some of the strongest research and best practices we have about how schools improve student learning, and this is truly shared work. Our principals are working side by side with district leadership, and our teachers are doing the important work of bringing these practices to life with students every day. From Pre-K through grade 12, we are building greater consistency and connection across our schools so that district leaders, principals, and teachers are all moving in the same direction, with student learning at the center.
Our vision at Orleans Central is that all our students will have pathways that lead them to success throughout their lives. That is a big promise, and fulfilling it happens through the work we do together every day. This work happens in our classrooms, in our schools, and in partnership with our students, families and communities.
Thank you for your continued partnership and for the trust you place in us and our schools!
Yours in education,
Jackie Ramsay-Tolman
Your OCSU Superintendent
Very Important: November 3 Election – Orleans Central Board Seats
With the State Board’s approval of our Articles of Agreement, we are moving forward with the November 3 vote on the formation of the Orleans Central Unified Union School District.
In addition to voting on the formation of the new district, voters will elect the initial members of the new Orleans Central Board. If the formation vote is successful, those individuals will serve as the initial board.
The approved Articles establish a 14-member board, with two seats allocated to each of our seven communities (Albany, Barton, Brownington, Glover, Irasburg, Westmore, Village of Orleans). Candidates must be registered voters and residents of the community associated with the seat they are seeking. Because this is a modified at-large model, candidates run for a seat associated with their community, but voters throughout the proposed district vote on the candidates.
Anyone wishing to be a candidate must file the required nominating petition and written consent with Kristin Atwood, Barton Town Clerk no later than 5:00 p.m. on Monday, September 28. You may email the documents to bartontownoffice@gmail.com or you may drop off at the Barton town clerks office. Petitions need at least 30 signatures and they can be from anyone in the District, not just your town.
To have your name printed on the November 3 ballot, the completed petition and written consent must be filed with Barton town clerk by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, September 28.
We can accommodate write-in candidates but they must be qualified for that office.
The necessary candidate forms are linked here for your convenience. If you wish to be a candidate, you will need to print and complete the forms, obtain the required 30 signatures, identify the specific term you are seeking, and file the completed materials with the Barton town clerk by the deadline.
Here are the forms for you to print:
local_candidate_petition.pdf
consent_candidate_local_elections.pdf
The initial terms established in our Articles are:
Albany: 1-year and 2-year
Barton: 1-year and 3-year
Brownington: 1-year and 2-year
Glover: 1-year and 3-year
Irasburg: 1-year and 2-year
Westmore: 2-year and 3-year
Village of Orleans: 2-year and 3-year
These initial staggered terms are established in Article 10 of the approved Articles of Agreement.
We will also have hard copies of the petition and consent forms available for you to pick up at COFEC between the hours of 8:00-3:30 daily
.
Please pay close attention to the filing deadline if you are interested in seeking a seat on the new board.
Check out the middle school newsletter! You'll find pictures, announcements, and information on what we're learning in our classes!
Albany Wolves run together. Rise together.
https://sites.google.com/ocsu.org/acs-middle-school/home?authuser=0