The Contoocook Valley School District budget vote will be held on Tuesday, March 28, 2023. Below are the places in the town of your residence where you can cast your vote:
For a brief video on the budget, please click here. For a message from the Chair of the ConVal School Board regarding the budget, please click here.
The Awesome Potatoes were indeed awesome yesterday and not only won a trophy but also earned one of the 6 invitations available to MS teams from NH/VT to the VEX IQ World Championship in Dallas as well as a $1200 scholarship to cover the entry fee for Worlds.
The students in FACS class participated in another successful round of Cookie Wars. The winners of this round created a delicious Nutella sandwich cookie!
Great Brook School's Maryanne Cullinan recently collaborated with colleagues from around the world and presented research at the Transformative Play Initiative Seminar that was held at Uppsala University in Gotland, Sweden.
Cullinan, who has been teaching in ConVal since 2005, has been pursuing her Ph.D. at Lesley University and is focusing her research on role-playing games (RPG) as a way to maximize educational accessibility. Over the past year, she’s collaborated with Rich Oxenham of Bath, England, who founded Hatchling Games and is the creator of the RPG Inspirisles.
Inspirisles is a completely original all-ages Tabletop RPG promoting storytelling, empathy and Deaf awareness with an emphasis on cooperation.
Inspirisles is designed to teach hearing students basic sign language and deaf awareness. Cullinan used the game as part of an elective course for seventh and eighth graders at Great Brook. Those students’ experiences served as the subject for Cullinan and Oxenham’s presentation highlighting the use of the game to build cultural awareness and teach American sign language to middle school students.
“Teachers need to be increasingly creative to meet the needs of students, who will need thinking skills as well as content in the real world," Cullinan said. "Roleplaying games are an academically understudied pedagogy, even though teachers have seen them do wonders with kids. It's amazing our little school can be part of research and journal articles that help forward the use of RPGs all over the world!”
In addition to her work with Inspirisles, Cullinan has been collaborating closely with Jennifer Genova, a middle school social studies teacher in Salem to develop a theoretical matrix meant to help educators select or create RPGs that maximize their students’ social-emotional or academic development. Their shared work was the subject of a second presentation at last week’s conference, which focused on analyzing RPGs and their use in educational settings.
“I am very proud of Maryanne’s commitment to discovering creative ways to engage students in rigorous academics and cultural competency,” Great Brook School Principal Kat Foecking said. “She is the kind of out-of-the-box thinker that drives educational innovation, which directly benefits our students.”
Chris Stultz, AES Librarian, collaborated with GBS teachers and staff members to set up read aloud sessions for the AES students. While Read Across America is a year long endeavor, March is a time when many schools, such as AES, highlight this celebration. Below you can find some more information about where this comes from and why it is important. We are so proud of our GBS community for participating in this special event to promote reading at the elementary level.
Launched in 1998 by the National Education Association (NEA) and guided by a committee of educators, NEA’s Read Across America is the nation’s largest celebration of reading. This year-round program focuses on motivating children and teens to read through events, partnerships, and reading resources that are about everyone, for everyone.
The titles and resources featured by NEA’s Read Across America include books that students can see themselves reflected in, as well as books that allow readers to see a world or a character that might be different than them.
Superintendent Kimberly Rizzo Saunders and the School Board’s Strategic Planning Committee encourage community members to complete surveys to help the ConVal School District to develop a new strategic plan.
Strategic plans act as a roadmap for the District to follow during a five-year period, highlighting specific projects and goals for long-term sustainable growth. The most recent strategic plan was created in 2016 and lasted through June 2021.
The survey will gather input about long-term strategies and goals that are most important to community members. Data collected will help the District to shape a strategic plan that reflects community priorities.
The survey is open to all stakeholders – parents/guardians, students, staff, and residents of Conval’s nine sending communities.
“We ask everyone to take a few moments to complete this important survey,” Superintendent Rizzo Saunders said. “This input is vital in guiding the District to develop a strategic plan to serve our students that reflects the goals and visions of our community.”
The survey is open and will remain live through Tuesday, Feb. 1. To take the survey:
As part of the District Reopening and Recovery Plan, ESSER III funds have been used to hire a math coach at the middle school level. Johnna McMasters-Jones is working with classroom teachers and math intervention teachers to hone their craft in bringing the most effective math teaching practices to the forefront of the classroom. This has resulted in increased discussion in our math classrooms, labeled as accountable talk, which according to research has an incredible impact on student learning. We are already seeing increased confidence in our students and we look forward to translating this to improved achievement.
Last year, GBS had to completely restructure its teaching configuration. This meant that our Extended Learning Programs (or ELPs) could not run. This year, we have been able to have these programs running again. Students self-select, apply for, and attend weekly ELPs. Currently the offerings are Costume Design (pictured above), Dungeon Master Guild, Improv, Ancient Warfare, and Photography. Students are responsible for connecting with their classroom teachers to make up any missed assignments. These exploratory programs offer our middle school students the opportunity to try new things, practice organizing their time, collaborate with peers, and develop leadership skills. For more information, please contact Maryanne Cullinan (mcullinan@conval.edu).
The Contoocook Valley School District budget vote will be held on Tuesday, March 28, 2023. Below are the places in the town of your residence where you can cast your vote:
For a brief video on the budget, please click here. For a message from the Chair of the ConVal School Board regarding the budget, please click here.
The Contoocook Valley School District budget vote will be held on Tuesday, March 28, 2023. Below are the places in the town of your residence where you can cast your vote:
The Awesome Potatoes were indeed awesome yesterday and not only won a trophy but also earned one of the 6 invitations available to MS teams from NH/VT to the VEX IQ World Championship in Dallas as well as a $1200 scholarship to cover the entry fee for Worlds.
The students in FACS class participated in another successful round of Cookie Wars. The winners of this round created a delicious Nutella sandwich cookie!
Great Brook School’s Maryanne Cullinan recently collaborated with colleagues from around the world and presented research at the Transformative Play Initiative Seminar that was held at Uppsala University in Gotland,
Chris Stultz, AES Librarian, collaborated with GBS teachers and staff members to set up read aloud sessions for the AES students. While Read Across America is a year long endeavor,
Superintendent Kimberly Rizzo Saunders and the School Board’s Strategic Planning Committee encourage community members to complete surveys to help the ConVal School District to develop a new strategic plan.
Strategic plans act as a roadmap for the District to follow during a five-year period,
As part of the District Reopening and Recovery Plan, ESSER III funds have been used to hire a math coach at the middle school level. Johnna McMasters-Jones is working with classroom teachers and math intervention teachers to hone their craft in bringing the most effective math teaching practices to the forefront of the classroom.
Last year, GBS had to completely restructure its teaching configuration. This meant that our Extended Learning Programs (or ELPs) could not run. This year, we have been able to have these programs running again.
