In this week's From the Library newsletter, read about the Young Adult Diverse Books Book Club picking up books for next year, learn about the Faculty/Staff Book Club's discussion of The Fury by Alex Michaelides and see some photos of students in Our Busy Library! Please click here for more information and photos.
Please remember to return your overdue books, renew the books you need more time to read and check out some new reads for spring!
One way of enjoying the treasures of a culture is to explore the culinary delights of the place. France is well feted for its extraordinary gastronomy, but you don’t need to take a flight to experience the food. La Provence, a French restaurant aptly named for the birthplace of Chef Robert, is located in Brandon, Vermont. For over fifteen years, Chef Robert has welcomed Woodstock French students, preparing a three course meal, preceded by a French lesson in cooking. The cooking lab is located below the dining room and has a taste kitchen as well as a large mirror so that observers can see in detail just how Chef Robert prepares a meal. The “plat” on the menu for Wednesday, May 1st was Cordon Bleu, a filet of chicken rolled with ham and swiss cheese in the center, then topped with a lemon butter sauce. In a lesson that lasted about 45 minutes, students learned from Chef Robert the method of preparing a filet of chicken using a cooking hammer, the correct type of oil to use depending on the dish, the side dishes (mashed potatoes) and the sauce that is poured over the dish. In between the directions, Chef Robert recounted his career path, one that would eventually lead him to Brandon, Vermont. He spoke softly in a melodious French, and students from levels II to Advanced had no problem understanding what he was saying. After the lesson, students went up to the dining room where they ate a 3 course meal consisting of a green salad, and seminal French dishes such as boeuf bourguignon, poulet nicoise, and quiche aux légumes. Dessert was a choice between bombe au chocolat or crème brûlée au sirop d'érable. Students loved the lunch and returned to campus happy to have enjoyed such a great French culinary experience.
On Thursday, April 25, WUHSMS’s sophomores participated in Sophomore Shadow Day. Students “shadowed” professionals in a wide range of fields, including aerospace engineering, medicine, emergency services, small business management, various science fields, and the building trades. More than 50 businesses, organizations, and individuals hosted students, allowing each student to learn about a career field of interest to them, try out some of the work of that career field, and learn about their host’s career path.
In reflections on their days, students gave high marks for the day and how valuable it was to them. Tucker Filiault, who shadowed at Kedron Valley Garage where he assisted with seasonal tire changes and inspections, as well as an oil change, was happy to have a hands-on, productive day. “It was a great experience!” he said.
Jacob Legayada, who shadowed Darrell Abrico of Nissan of Lebanon, noted, “I really enjoyed joining in the morning conference and see[ing] behind the scenes of a car dealership….” April 25 was actually Jacob’s third day shadowing at the Nissan dealership--and he is happy to report that he has landed a part-time job there this summer.
Alek Cirovic, who shadowed Laurie Beyranevand at Vermont Law School, appreciated talking with many women involved in the field of environmental law and had an opportunity to attend a presentation on the impact of the fashion industry on the environment. She concluded, “I am definitely interested in this field of work! This job shadow gave me more reasons to dive into this career and explore law and the environment.”
Mimi Kanda-Olmstead, who shadowed Jonathan Tuthill at the Hartford Community Restorative Justice Center commented, “What I found most interesting, as well as unique, is how these different organizations throughout the community, with very different goals, all believe in the idea of restorative justice. They all work together to ensure the community is safe….It was overall a very powerful experience, and I am so grateful for it.”
Dominic Palazzo, who joined a group of seven other WUHS students at Mt. Ascutney Hospital and Health Center for Shadow Day, appreciated learning about the many opportunities in health care. “I found the most interesting thing to be the multiple different jobs that there were around the hospital, and how everybody appreciated each person's different expertise.”
Owen Whalen was part of a small group of students who first toured UVM’s College of Engineering College and then visited Beta Technologies, an electric aerospace company. At Beta they had a tour of the company's facilities, spoke with aerospace engineer Riley Giffin (a WUHS alum), and then tried out Beta’s flight simulator. “It was a super cool experience,” Owen commented, “and made me want to become an engineer even more.”
This annual event was organized by the Center of Community Connections (C3) in conjunction with English II teachers Nate Clifford and Martha Perkins, and counselors Sofia Bertocci and Sarah Smith. The organizers and the students are very grateful to all of the community members who hosted students for this event.
Be sure you check out the front page of this week’s Focus Section in the Standard for additional photos and coverage related to this event.
The Spring Plant Sale at the Woodstock Union HS/MS Greenhouse is coming up! The sale will run from May 1st-31st and be open from 9am-2pm on school days. We will be open late for school staff (until 6 pm) on Monday, May 6th.
We made a few really exciting changes this year. Students start more than half of our plants by seed but we do have to source some more difficult-to-start plants (think petunias and geraniums) from a nursery. This year, all of those plants came from a nursery that is neonicotinoid free (read more about the effects of neonicotinoids on pollinators here)! Students collected and sowed MANY native plants this year. Some will be available this spring and some will be available to pre-order for fall planting. See our full list of plants here.
This year, we will also be selling No Mow May signs and Fedco seeds for varieties that you may want to direct-sow in your garden.
We will be holding a plastic plant pot collection drive again. We can only reuse 4-pack and 4” square pots in good condition. We will accept other sized pots and broken pots (if they are #2 or #5 plastic) that we will recycle through a special program but they must be clean and sorted from the 4-pack and 4” pots that we can reuse. As always, bring cardboard boxes if you have them for transporting your plants to your car.
Please contact me with any questions.
Happy Spring!
Abbie Castriotta (Greenhouse/Garden Manager)
By Ada Mahood
On Wednesday, April 17, some fun(gi) things were happening in the greenhouse. Woodstock Alumni David Andrews and his partner Erin Donahue from Tiny Acres Farm, visited the greenhouses to demonstrate how to plant mushrooms and to talk about their business. Students engaged in hands-on activities such as drilling the holes for the mushroom spawn, learning how to put the spawn in the holes and sealing them with beeswax.
For a little bit of a backstory, David went to WUHSMS and took Agricultural classes that were offered. One year he and Kat Robbins, who helps coordinate our CRAFT department, went to Cobb Hill farm where he learned the ins and outs of mushrooms. This hands-on experience sparked his interest in becoming a mushroom farmer. He moved out to Colorado after high school graduation, where he and his partner started experimenting and growing mushrooms for their own personal use. When they moved to Maine a few years later they made the decision to switch from personal growing to commercial farming of mushrooms. Their business has grown through local farmers markets, and restaurants. Right now they have over 2,000 logs in production. They inoculate (plant) around 1,000 a year. David's long term goal is to have 10,000 logs in production.
In those 2,000 logs they grow many varieties of mushrooms including, 13 varieties of Shitake, 4 varieties of Oyster mushrooms, Lions Mane, Chestnut, etc.
All of the CRAFT classes were involved in inoculating around 60 oak logs donated by Leo Maslan. The students drilled holes in the logs and filled them with Blue Oyster and Shitake mushrooms. Middle School students “planted” a Wine Cap mushroom bed in our permaculture garden. For the Shitake, it’ll take about 12-18 months for them to fully become mushrooms, but the Wine Caps take as little time as 1 month. Come by and see the fruits of our labor!
From April 10th through the 20th, seventeen Woodstock students participated in the second leg of a cultural exchange with students from Salesianos Paseo de Extremadura in Madrid, Spain.
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Here is your visual journey. Click here to see more pictures. Spain was fun!
Earth Day 2024 was a perfect sunshiney day for students in grades 7-12 to connect with the earth and each other. For the last two hours of the day, students engaged in workshops that included: making reusable beeswax food wraps, crocheting a hanging plant hanger, doing bird painting with VINS, making art from fruits and veggies, making wildflower seed bombs, learning to grow and harvest microgreens, learning vegan cooking skills with Heather Wolfe, making their own eco-friendly cleaning products including a shoe deodorizer (hello spring athletes!), greening up campus, learning from Change the World Kids, and creating a new perennial pollinator hedgerow. Seventh graders hiked through the King Farm and a group of high school students helped five different classes at Woodstock Elementary School perform stewardship of their campus, Vail Field, and their outdoor classroom on Mount Peg. This was a tremendous effort where students and staff came together to create, pause, and practice stewardship. A huge thanks to everyone involved!
Senior Vera Windish presented to the ninth graders last week, sharing her experiences as a Jewish student here at WUHSMS. She highlighted the joys and challenges of being Jewish in the state of Vermont. Vera, who loves to bake and who plans to attend culinary school in the fall, also baked black and white cookies to share with the students. Ninth graders asked many questions of Vera, including, "can someone be ethnically Jewish but practice a different religion?" and "has your experience here at WUHS improved over the years, or do you still experience religious bigotry?" As part of their Modern World History and English I classes, ninth grade students have been engaged in an interdisciplinary unit about the Holocaust. Hearing from students like Vera helps students make important connections to the present. Thank you, Vera, for your visit!"
On Thursday, April 18, the Middle School and High School participated in the Dancing Through Barriers educational program with the Dance Theatre of Harlem. The Dancing Through Barriers program fosters teamwork and community building through dance and dance education. Participants danced their way through history from a movement exercise to understand the Middle Passage, small group work to connect to each individual’s heritage, the Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance. Ms. Perkins commented that it was fun to be “moving as a community of many communities.” During the program, participants also learned about the founder of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, Arthur Mitchell, and the ballet company’s history.
One of the highlights of the High School program was the “Soul Train Line” where two dancers at a time dance down the center aisle formed by two parallel lines of people cheering the dancers on while waiting for their turn to dance, strut or bust a move!
A number of students provided testimonials at the end of the workshops, and they used words like “exciting,” “fun,” and “a great opportunity” to describe their experiences. And, in one very moving testimonial, Kiki Grillo-Chope stated, “I love dancing!” When asked what she thought about the workshop, Sadie Boulbol said, “It was enlightening to see how they put that story to choreography.” Clara Burkholder, who takes dance lessons, even performed her solo competition piece at the end of the workshop for the Dance Theatre of Harlem educators’ feedback and critique.
This programming was made possible thanks to a grant from Pentangle.
