The Monroe Messenger

Dear James Monroe Families,

What's cooking at James Monroe...a celebration of readers including buddy reading, guest readers from the community and a family reading night by a campfire, decorating bears, teachers reading stories, songs and S’mores! Thank you to our reading specialist, Mrs. Kelly Pedana, our intervention team Mrs. Westcott and Mrs. Ciccarella and our reading committee for elevating the value of reading in such fun and engaging ways!

We encourage you to pick up a book and read to your child, no matter their age, and enjoy reading together.

We look forward to seeing you at our Multicultural Night and Parent Teacher Conferences.

Warmly,

Mrs. Cynthia Tufaro, principal

Mr. Argiris Hristofis, assistant principal

There is still time to schedule Parent Teacher Conferences on the following date:

Thursday, March 13th & 20th at 5:00 - 6:30pm (in-person)

These are early dismissal days.

Grades K - 5 - 1:30 p.m.

You may schedule a 7-minute conference with your child's teacher using the conference feature on Parent Portal. Conferences are a valuable time to help forge a strong relationship and assist the teacher in getting to know your child better as well as providing you with a progress update. Contact your child’s teacher if you have any problems scheduling an appointment. Do not change the format, there are preset appointments for virtual or in-person conferences.

Directions for grades K - 5 and SCA:

1. Log into Parent Portal.

2. Go to Student Data and select conferences. A link will appear that says “Schedule conference for Parent Teacher Conferences” for each available day. (See image below)

3. On the next screen, select “Reserve” to choose a day and time for your child's teacher.

4. Select only one conference per teacher. Select a conference appointment that matches your preference. An email notification will be sent to confirm the appointment.

Our Food Drive was a huge success! We were able to fill over 20 large containers with food for Replenish Food Bank for Middlesex County! Classrooms collected and created designs with all of their donations. When we work together as a team to fight hunger, we are all winners! Thank you for all of your generous donations!

5th grade homerooms each played a competitive round of volleyball to earn a spot to compete against our staff volleyball team. In the end, 5-1 played the teachers in the final match! It was all for a good cause and donations went toward ETEA scholarships, Camp Kiddie Keep Well and Buddy Ball. Congratulations to our teachers who went on to play in the district tournament and reached the semi-finals!

We introduced our new Book Vending Machine with a Reading Pep Rally which included a ribbon cutting ceremony, students caught reading on the Reading Cam, and even mystery Masked Readers. Thanks to our very own cheerleading squad for adding to the spirit!

Selection of Middle School World Language and Electives on Parent Portal will take place until March 3rd at 4pm. Click on the following link for directions of how to schedule in the Parent Portal.

You will be asked to choose one World Language and one Elective. For the electives and World Language, please select your child’s first and second choice.

WORLD LANGUAGES FOR GRADE 6: SPANISH 6 or FRENCH 6

ELECTIVE COURSE OFFERINGS FOR GRADE 6 (You will only have ONE elective):

Select an area in the parent portal, and you will see a list of available electives.

1. CAREER AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION (CTE) SUBJECT AREA

2. VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS SUBJECT AREA

3. WORLD LANGUAGE SUBJECT AREA

** A Middle School Program of Studies for elective course descriptions will be posted on the middle school website that your child will be attending.

Please review the Elective Information with your child and discuss their interests and abilities regarding these classes. Every effort will be made to accommodate the selections made for your child, but they are not guaranteed. If you have any questions or need assistance, please contact your child’s current School Counselor. You must complete your elective selection in the portal before March 3rd, but it is not “first come, first served.”

Our students are "Choosing Kindness" and earning wristbands from teachers or peers when they are polite, welcoming or helpful! Watch our Kindness Chain grow for every moment of kindness.

It's that time again! Time for our annual reading contest! This year we will be keeping with our school wide theme "What's Cooking at James Monroe". Classes will be sorted into one of four teams during their next library class. The teams are as follows:

Red- Tomatoes for Neela

Yellow- Piranhas Don't Eat Bananas

Blue- Blueberries for Sal

Green- Sylvia's Spinach

The contest will run from 2/26 through 3/7.

Our Physical Education classes kicked off the American Heart Association's “Kids Heart Challenge” this month across all of their classes! Together we doubled our fundraising from last year and raised almost $6,000.00! Students learned about how to build a healthy lifestyle and engaged in fun cardiovascular activities! Check out the images for some highlights!

A special thank you to Mrs. Reif or Mr. Fernandez for leading this initiative! Our Physical Education classes earned funding to purchase new gym equipment, too!

We are seeking families to volunteer. Please join us at our upcoming Multicultural Night to be held on March 27th from 6 - 7:30 pm. It is a wonderful celebration of our school community's diversity and gives us an opportunity to learn about each other's cultures, traditions and food.This event will showcase performances by school groups only. We appreciate your understanding and support.

If your family is interested in volunteering and helping host a table, please register HERE.

Thank you to our Media Club for creating this month's Whoo's News! This month's edition includes highlights from the Someone Special Dance and The Science Expo!

Check out these highlights from our Someone Special Dance. Children and their special guest danced the night away. Thank you to the James Monroe PTO for creating a magical atmosphere and to our staff volunteers for their assistance.

• Please join us in the cafeteria or virtually at or next PTO meeting on March 11th at 6:00 pm. A link will be shared to join virtually as well before the meeting.
• Gertrude Hawk orders are due March 10th.
• Chick-Fila Dine Out Night will be held March 26th!

We are so proud of our future leaders in the STEM field for sharing their knowledge at our recent Science Fair. Thank you to our EHS Science Honor Society volunteer, to our staff, especially Mrs. Somes, for providing this enriching opportunity for our students. Each student went home with their very own science journal to record their scientific observations and curious questions.

Click HERE to register your incoming Kindergarten student for the upcoming school year. We look forward to welcoming our future owls!

The Public Schools of Edison Township is proud to offer a Dual Language Academy (DLA) located at Washington Elementary School. In this dual language program, students will be taught literacy and academic content in both English and Spanish. The DLA is a full-time program of instruction running from Grade K through 5th grade that provides structured English language instruction, as well as instruction in Spanish, in all core content areas.All Edison School District students are eligible to apply for the program prior to the start of kindergarten.

Family Information Sessions

INFORMATION SESSIONS will occur on the following dates at

Washington Elementary School, 153 Winthrop Avenue, Edison, NJ

Tuesday, March 25, 2025 - 6pm-7pm

Tuesday, May 13, 2025 - 6pm-7pm

Calling All Poets!

The Young American Poetry Society is looking for entries to publish in this year’s digest. If interested, please pick up an entry form from the Library, available starting the week of March 10th. You may return your original poems to the Library and they will be mailed in to be reviewed by their committee. They feature Haiku poetry but all forms of poetry are welcome. Poems must be 80 words or less. Poems are due to the Library by April 4th. You may also submit your poetry directly to the Young American Poetry Society. For more information please visit www.youngpoets.org We are looking forward to seeing our creative Owls at work!

I'm happy to announce that our Adult ESL Classes will be up and running again for our township residents. Aside from language lessons, there will be:

• Access to community resources & members
• Opportunities to meet with neighbors and High School student volunteers
• Parental Rights in Education workshops
• Tutorials about Genesis & Parent Portal features
• and so much more!

They will be held from 6pm-8pm on Wednesday nights at Lindeneau School from 3/2 - 5/11 and Thursday nights at Menlo Park School from 3/3 - 5/12. Child care will be provided.

March Newsletter Drama Club

We are not waiting until "Tomorrow" to start practicing our lines and dances and songs!

Rehearsals are well under way for this year's musical~ Annie Jr.

We continue to work after school at rehearsals but our committed cast members work at lunch and at home practicing as well!

Information will be sent home soon to invite our Kindergarten, First and Second grade students the opportunity to be a part of the opening number of the musical! It is so exciting to work together to create magic on stage!

The set designers are hard at work bringing Annie Jr. to life! They have been painting, drawing, and sharing great ideas of how to portray the setting of NYC. We continue to work on our sets and look forward to bringing our prop designers on board to work with us on costumes, and other special projects. Creative juices are flowing and we can’t wait to see what comes next!

Gloves

Consider purchasing your child gloves with anti-slip grips for safe play. See picture for an example of gloves that can be purchased at Amazon or Wal-mart.

Ramadaan Fasting

If your child is fasting, please send in a note to the teacher letting them know if this is daily or on a day-to-day basis. Gym teachers and Lunch Aides will be informed. Alternative choices that are less strenuous will be provided as options for recess and physical education.

Take home meals are available for families observing Ramadan. For more information and to participate, visit the Food Services Website here: (https://www.edison.k12.nj.us/page/ramadan-2025)

Children can purchase snacks after they eat lunch on Tuesday and Thursdays!