May 2025

Greetings Lavallette School Community,

“Celebrating student growth honors the journey of learning—reminding us that progress, not perfection, is the true measure of success."– Unknown

As we step into the final stretch of the school year, I want to take a moment to reflect on the incredible journey we’ve shared together. May is a time of both celebration and preparation — celebrating the growth, resilience, and achievements of our students, and preparing for the exciting opportunities ahead.

This month, our classrooms are filled with energy as students showcase their learning through projects, performances, and year-end assessments. Our teachers and staff continue to go above and beyond to ensure each child finishes the year strong, supported, and confident in their accomplishments.

We are also looking forward to special events that bring our school community together — from field days and class trips to promotion and graduation ceremonies. These moments remind us of the joy and strength found in our partnerships with you, our families.

Thank you for your continued support, involvement, and commitment to your child's education. Together, we make Lavallette Elementary School a place where every student is inspired to learn, grow, and thrive.

Annual Field Trips

Our 7th grade students enjoyed the annual overnight trip to Pocono Environmental Education Center, where they cultivate an appreciation and love of nature. While this year’s trip was a bit “soggy,” there were smiles all around during the myriad activities they enjoyed, including night hikes, campfire stories, and the much beloved “smores.”

As we go to print on our newsletter, our 8th grade students are enjoying the annual class trip to Gettysburg, where they are exploring the many rich historical sites, as well as learning more about Amish culture. Of course, they love the extra day spent enjoying the rides at Hershey Park, in spite of the rain!

The students certainly enjoyed this year’s “Pie An Administrator/Teacher Day”, which raised funds for our Safety Patrol, and National Junior Honor Society! While our teachers and administrators may not eat whipped cream again for the foreseeable future, it was all worth it to see the smiles on our students' faces! Thank you for supporting this event, which made approximately $700 for our student organizations.

Voices of Lavallette - “Leading With Excellence”

As you may be aware, this year we began a new video blog, or a “vlog” as some call it, where I plan to showcase the incredible students, staff, and community members who are the heart of Lavallette Elementary School! Our second episode features our wonderfully talented Teachers of the Year from the past three years - Mr. Oliver, Mrs. Homer, and Mrs. Savage. I hope you’ll take the time to hear more about their journey as educators and what makes them so passionate about teaching at Lavallette Elementary School. You can find the Voices of Lavallette HERE. Hope you enjoy it!

NJ and the Arts

We had a very wonderful turnout for last week’s New Jersey and the Arts event, which features our 3rd grade county projects, our annual art exhibit, and the spring concert. Our students showcased their creative and academic talents for our school community and a good time was had by all!

Unsung Hero Award

This month, Mrs. Misdom and I attended the Unsung Hero recognition ceremony in Toms River. This event recognizes students across the county who have demonstrated considerable growth and persevered through difficult circumstances, while demonstrating kindness, compassion, and leadership. Our 8th grade student, Christopher Acevedo, and his parents joined us for a wonderful evening celebrating his accomplishments. Congratulations to Christopher!

Lavallette Legacy Wall – Phase 2 Underway

Phase 2 of the Lavallette Legacy Wall will be underway shortly, expanding the wonderful honor wall in our school’s entrance way that pays tribute to our students, graduates, family members, and other special community members. This wall, which is the first thing parents, students, and visitors see as they enter the school, is growing with legacy tiles and allows students or family members to custom design their own 8x8” tile for $75 each. For more information, please click on this link Order Tile or see the Wednesday Folder.

Strategies to Help Students Retain Information

It can be challenging for students to remember what they have learned. That’s because the human brain is wired to forget. To help your child improve memory and recall:

Be sure your child understands the material - It’s difficult to memorize something if you don’t quite know what it means. Ask your child to explain it to you.
Make it personal - Discuss connections between the topic and things in your child’s life. Is a book character like Uncle George?
Set it to music - Encourage your child to make up a tune or simple rhyme to remember names, dates or math formulas.Encourage your child to draw a picture or make a diagram about the information. Suggest including a written caption.
Surround your child with the material - For a history topic, help find books, movies and songs about that topic, too. Search YouTube for entertaining videos that explain difficult concepts.
Be thorough - Remind your child to read through all class notes when studying. Afterward, your child can go back and try to recall and restate the information.
Sleep on it - The brain processes and stores information during sleep. Suggest that your child review essential information just before going to bed - a quick recap.

Making Summer Learning Fun for Middle Schoolers

Middle schoolers are able to consider ideas and think in ways that wouldn’t have been possible when they were younger. Support these emerging thinking skills by encouraging your child to record thoughts and ideas in a summer journal. Grab a notebook and suggest that your student:

Make lists of favorite songs, shows, books, meals or celebrities. It’s fun for kids to look back on these later to see how their opinions have changed.
Try fiction. Encourage your child to write a short story.
Try writing forms of poetry like haiku, limericks, or free verse.
Write about something funny. Why is it so funny to your child? Which friend or family member has a similar sense of humor?
Describe a friend, teacher or family member in detail— including their personality, appearance and interesting quirks.
Record observations and thoughts on a particular day.
Write about an ideal day. How would it be different from a typical day? How would it be the same?

The Upper Shores Library works closely with our school in ensuring they have inventory on the books recommended by teachers for students to read over the summer. Our Summer Recommended Reading List will be posted on our website next month!

Lavallette School’s Social Media and Communication Platforms

We have so many wonderful things happening here at Lavallette Elementary School and our staff is committed to highlighting all of these exciting learning activities and school community events. We invite you to download the Lavallette School mobile app, visit our website at www.lavallettek12.org, and follow Lavallette School on the following social media platforms:

Thank you to each and every one of our parents for your ongoing support and partnership in your child’s education at Lavallette Elementary School!

Sincerely,
Dr. Lisa J. Gleason
Superintendent/Principal
Leadership Achievement Values Aspirations
#LAVAproud