Amie comes to UP for Learning after serving as Assistant Principal for the past nine years at two Vermont middle schools. Amie will focus on establishing new statewide initiatives and supporting UP’s middle school programs. Amie’s career experiences include being a middle school teacher, administrator, and leadership coach, adjunct professor at St. Michael’s College, a...
Every member of a school community has a sphere of influence. This sphere contains an interwoven network of relationships that can influence decisions, policy and practices. The outcomes ultimately depend on the strength of the relationships among students, teachers, administrators, families and community members. Schools across Vermont have been exploring the idea of implementing a...
In this issue… Mastermind Mentors in action, Getting to “Y” project updates, the PBL Forum, … and more! Read More
Vermont’s decision to shift from a traditional to a proficiency-based grading system is essential to ensuring all youth reach their full potential. It is my hope that the Vermont National Education Association’s request to push back the deadline for implementing proficiency-based graduation requirements to 2022 does not diminish a commitment to this change. Here is...
Episode 030 – UP for Learning Interview with Helen Beattie and Clara Lew Smith
Reading the Department of Health brief on “Adolescents Who Feel They Matter” recently led me to reflect on how grateful I am to have been involved in Getting to ‘Y’ (GTY) over the past decade, first as an advisor to a local GTY group and now as the coordinator for the initiative at UP for...
This new year provides and opportunity to both look back at our last decade of growth and look forward to the next 10 years. Like many nonprofits, we have been so busy working with schools, that we rarely back away to see the organization as a whole. The recent task of constructing an “Impact Statement”...
How can I expedite my school’s shift to youth-adult partnership? UP has been working for years to help youth-adult teams hone their partnerships. We recognize the “teeter-totter effect,” where one generation or the other may end up with an outsized share of power and leave the other hanging. We know it takes time to get...
The personalization of learning requires the relationship of students and teachers to shift to partnership and shared responsibility. Educational change in Vermont has also opened the door to unprecedented opportunities for young people to be central to change, rather than passive recipients. However, there are few roadmaps for shifting our mental models and practices to...
The latest raging debates about women’s place in our society feel disorienting and dangerous to a lot of people. To some of us who came of age a half-century ago, when we stepped into the women’s movement at the same time we entered womanhood itself, there’s now a sense of having come adrift. Things we...
