School news
Middle school winter carnival fun!
7th and 8th Grade Students and teachers enjoyed an afternoon of fun during our Middle School Winter Carnival on Thursday, March 9th.
After spirited games of students vs. faculty in dodgeball, students chose between sledding, ice skating, and indoor activities including a murder mystery, spaghetti tower building, and board games. More than 70 students took advantage of the opportunity to skate at Union Arena.
The afternoon wrapped up with the entire middle school enjoying cookies and cocoa outside in the sun.
Thanks to our middle school Student Leadership Club, Lucia Beckwith, Tilly Richardson, Nick Cellini, Julia Barry, Vasco Malik, Marshall Somerville, Jake Blackburn, Abby Kowalczyk, Morgan Darling, and Addison Tapley, for planning and organizing the Winter Carnival, as well as to Lexi Judson and Declan Haugh for helping with our snacks. It was a fantastic afternoon!
WUHSMS Principal's 2021-22 Report
Dear WCSU Community,
I am so grateful to share some of the accomplishments of Woodstock Union High School and Middle School students, faculty, and staff from the 2021-22 school year. First and foremost, I extend my heartfelt thanks to this community for supporting our school.
We offer personalized, authentic, and student-driven learning experiences for our students. During the 2021-22 school year, our enrollment was 486 students in grades 7-12. To meet student needs associated with the impacts of the pandemic, we added a social-emotional learning specialist to the faculty and small group academic support.
At the middle school level, we created a club and activity program providing students with more choices and opportunities to interact and build a middle school identity. The eighth-grade team created an end-of-the-year overnight experience celebrating students transitioning to high school. At the high school level, we continued to enhance our academic program by expanding offerings including the AP program, with 105 students taking 209 AP exams, STEM and design classes, and student-designed experiences via the Center for Community Connections, C3.
We launched teacher initiatives including the C.R.A.F..T. program, which integrates science, technology, and agriculture to promote deep learning about climate resiliency. The C3 Department created the Trailblazer Series, which hosted presentations and workshops by alums for current students. The modern and classical language department partnered with the international organization Soliya allowing students to engage in cross-cultural virtual dialogues with peers in Tunisia and Lebanon.
We are proud to recognize achievements and awards earned by members of our school community. The Social Action Club hosted the Leadership Summit for Social Justice. Participants considered barriers to inclusion experienced by students at WUHSMS, reviewed a draft of the WCSU proposed Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity in Education Policy, and inspired each other to take action for positive change. The Vermont Humanities Council awarded librarian Susan Piccoli the Victor R. Swenson Humanities Educator Award. Students had their work published in the VT Digger and Vermont Standard, broadcast on Vermont PBS, displayed in regional art galleries, and recognized by organizations including the University of Vermont Mathematics Department, American Junior Academy of Science, Future Business Leaders of America, and Vermont Holocaust Memorial.
We saw energy and enthusiasm in athletics and extracurricular activities with more than 70% of students participating and our biggest turnout of fans and audiences in recent memory. The Yoh Players performed four amazing shows, the Unified Sports soccer team won gold at the state tournament, and the girls’ ice hockey team made school history by winning the state championship!
I am deeply grateful for the support of our generous community, and I look forward to another successful year at Woodstock Union High School and Middle School.
Sincerely,
Garon Smail
WUHSMS Principal
Students attend exposition at the Hood Museum of Art
On Friday, February 10, our class visited the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College to see the exposition "¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now". Dartmouth's Vivian M. Ladd Tomasi and Beatriz Yanes Martinez led the students in the collection's English and Spanish tours, part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's traveling exhibit. The exhibit featured a broad, diverse, and inclusive view of American art.
Record turnout for the Poetry Out Loud contest
On February 14th, a record number of high school students -- 28!-- gathered in YOH Auditorium to participate in this year’s Poetry Out Loud Recitation Contest. Even the student body that gathered to support them appeared record in number, so one might presume it was a good day to “heart” a poem -- either as a deliverer or a receiver.
Students self-selected their poems from The Poetry Out Loud anthology and, with much classroom (and beyond!) practice, offered their interpretations of poems ranging in content from madness to love (unsung and found), to Nature (her seasonal and animal impact and messages for humanity), perseverance, opportunity, and even a few poems or “Pomes” featuring wicked “W” wordplay and pun. The poetry recitations were assessed in several categories -- the speaker’s physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness, evidence of understanding, overall performance and accuracy.
Aside from the stellar Excel program Mr. Andy Smith put together to sum the judges’ scores for each student, Woodstock’s Poetry Out Loud Contest was a tech-free, “Old-school,'' pure mind-body-soul event where students from the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grades truly distinguished themselves in offering a poem that mattered to them this past Valentine’s Day.
By 3:00 pm, the scoring team of Mrs. Vonada and Mr. Andy Smith reported the results from Judges Brennan, Richardson, Allen, Robbins, Smail and Hayslett to reveal freshman Agnes Kardashian’s third place finish with 146 points for “Invictus” by William Earnest Henley; junior William Obbard’s second place finish with 167 points for “Tomorrow” by Dennis O’Driscoll; and senior Anne Hauze’s first place with 185 points for “The Properly Scholarly Attitude” by Adelaide Crapsey.
As Woodstock’s 2023 Poetry Out Loud School Champion, Anne Hauze will represent Woodstock at The Poetry Out Loud Regional Competition in Barre, Vermont on March 9th, where she will compete with two poems and vie for a spot in the state finals to be held on March 16th at The Flynn Center in Burlington -- stay tuned! For students wishing to see the complete scoring results for all contestants, please stop by the Library Circulation Desk. Thank you to all the students who gave poetry recitation or reading a try this winter -- this was just about everyone!
Students attend Latin Day at UVM
Woodstock students in grades 7-12 attended Latin Day at UVM and met hundreds of other students from across the state who also study Latin and the ancient world.
Students participated in various fun and educational breakout sessions, including a tour of Latin inscriptions at UVM, trivia and Latin grammar competitions, a visit to UVM’s special collections where they could see 500-year-old books, and a session on how Roman military formations worked.
Students in Latin II and IV wrote and performed a skit about Emperor Claudius battling an orca in the port of Ostia, and they got a ton of laughs and won first place! Woodstock students also received 1 silver and 2 gold medals for their participation in outdoor Olympica competitions.
Overall Woodstock earned 3rd place in the small school division! We're pretty excited about that since it was our first time (at least in recent memory) going to Latin Day, and we look forward to attending again next year! Venimus, Vidimus, Vicimus!