Sabira and Lexy from Ms. Miller's third-grade class at Mennies Elementary School were the first to earn enough tickets to have lunch with their teacher! Students earn tickets by demonstrating positive behavior, active participation, and strong academic performance — all while following our core character traits and Portrait of a Graduate competencies.
To earn a special lunch, students need 150 tickets — and since Sabira and Lexy were the first to reach this milestone, Ms. Miller let them pick a special treat! lunch!
Many Upcoming Events at Vineland Historical Society Museum
The public is invited to visit the museum and take part in a variety upcoming events.
The “Legacy in Brushstrokes” Exhibit and silent auction will conclude on March 29, following the Open House from 1-4 PM. This is the last opportunity to bid on paintings. The highest bid will take the painting home. Contact the museum for alternate visit times.
Art at the Museum will open its new display on April 12 with “Molded and Blown- A Journey through Glass, Pottery and Ceramics.” Once again, area artists are asked to donate one or more pieces for silent bidding. Proceeds will benefit the museum. Donations may be dropped off at the museum on April 3, 2025 from 9AM-4 PM.
The museum will also display pieces of its permanent collection.
A Titanic-themed Tea Party will be held on Sunday, April 6 from 1-4 PM. Special guest Alisa Dupuy will present at Eliza, a Titanic survivor. Donation is $25 for adults and $15 for children 12 and under. Advance registration is required. Spots are limited.
A “Poet-Tea” will be held on Wednesday, 4/23 at 6:00 PM. Area poets are invited to presents their works and sample teas. Contact the museum to present your works.
Sign up for the “Vineland Landmark Trolley Tour.” The trolley will pick up passengers at the Vineland Historical Museum and proceed to Siloam Cemetery. A tour of the cemetery with historic persons and evented will be presented. The trolley will then proceed to the” Palace of Depression,” for a tour of the palace, the palace museum and the oddities of its creator George Daynor. The trolley will then return to the VHAS Museum for a tour of the museum and a look at Vineland’s past. The rain date is April 27. Donation is $30.00 per person. Registration is required.
The Vineland Historical and Antiquarian Society Museum is located at 108 South Seventh St., in Vineland. Visit discovervinelandhistory.org for a calendar of events and to register for events. Please call 856-691-1111 for questions and leave a detailed message. The Society Museum is a 501 c3 non-profit, non-governmental organization. It is funded by memberships, grants, donations, and bequests.
Three Veterans Memorial School students and their physical education teacher put Vineland Public School's vision of Portrait of a Graduate into practice by taking Responsibility when they tracked down the owner of several lost checks with significant monetary value.
VMS Eighth graders Yadier Alvarez Colon, Genesis Banderas, and Deena Margolin stumbled upon the checks and a bank deposit slip while participating in physical education class on the VMS football field on Friday, March 14.
"The wind was really blowing around, and we saw these papers on the field, and we first were laughing because we tried getting them, but the wind kept taking them further and further down the field," said Margolin.
The students caught up with the papers. "Once we picked them up, we thought they looked really important," said Banderas. "So, we ran to our teacher, Ms. S."
"These students showed amazing responsibility by acting with great integrity," said Mrs. Dawn Spickenreuther. "They all were so concerned about the person who lost the checks and wanted to go above and beyond to return them to the rightful owner."
Spickenreuther and her students, Alvarez-Colon, Banderas, and Margolin, turned into sleuths using clues on the checks and the deposit slip to contact Donna Tarabbio of Sandcastle Home Watch who said that the strong winds earlier that week blew the checks out of the window of her car and they were nowhere to be found. Although she immediately stopped payment on the checks, she was relieved when she received the phone call from Spickenreuther at the end of the week. Tarabbio commented on the integrity of all involved and how grateful she is for the students and their teacher.
"I would hug them all, but I know I can't," Tarabbio said. They are such great students, and they are so lucky to have such a nice teacher, too."
The students were so excited about being able to do a good deed for a community member that all three students, with administrative permission, called their parents from the AP's office to tell them of their act of being responsible citizens.
"I am just happy that we were able to find the person and return the checks to her," said Alvarez-Colon.
PLTW (Project Lead the Way) is an incredible hands-on program that fully immerses students in learning at all of Vineland’s middle schools. On the evening of March 11th, Pilla’s Air Skimmer event was made possible thanks to the Vineland Education Association’s PRIDE Grant! Families came together to design, build, and race air skimmers while enjoying a night of fun and pizza. The evening's champions—Luke Petrini, Lucas Ruberti, and their dads—set a new record in Ms. Morgan’s PLTW class with launches reaching nearly 80 feet! Who’s ready to take on the challenge and beat their score?
Vineland High School AFJROTC Cadet Van Osten, our Inspector General (IG), has earned his wings pin after completing five months of training and passing his exam—a first for our unit! Thanks to the Young Eagles program, which was introduced to AFJROTC last year, he received ground school training at no cost. He is now ready to move on to the next stage of obtaining his private pilot license. A great achievement worth celebrating!
In spite of the gloomy weather, a few members of the VHS S.H.A.P.E. Club participated in Cumberland County Improvement Authority's annual Trash Hunt. Students volunteered their time Saturday morning cleaning up the front of the school and a section of Chestnut Avenue.
Come out to Red Robin on Delsea Drive this Thursday, March 20, to support the Veterans Memorial School Safety Patrol. This fundraiser is active ALL DAY and the VMS Safety Patrol will receive 20% of food sales if you show the attached flyer or tell your server. More information is available on the flyer. All proceeds will go toward their trip to Washington, D.C. in May.
Students in Ms. Ecret's class at Wallace Middle School are reading Romeo and Juliet. After reading the famous balcony scene between Romeo and Juliet, her students were tasked with one of two projects. They could either create an Instagram post representing the conversation while citing lines from the play or create vows for Romeo and Juliet's wedding following Shakespeare's Sonnet Style of writing. These students did an AMAZING job and surpassed expectations! We are so proud of their hard work!
At Petway Elementary School, the 4th-grade students in Mrs. Scarpa and Mrs. Bond’s science classes had an exciting hands-on learning experience. As part of our study on animal anatomy, students worked in small groups to carefully examine and identify both the internal and external structures of an animal through a supervised “dissection” experiment. This lesson helped students understand how different body systems function and how the structures of an organism support their survival and growth. It was a great opportunity for discovery, learning, and teamwork. It was also a lot of fun!!
A special shout-out to the Petway Safety Patrol, who volunteered at the Vineland Soup Kitchen! Your hard work and kindness brought smiles to so many faces. They were responsible for making sandwiches and a holiday trail mix! They also packed 150 bagged lunches, with festive bags donated by Mrs. Nonnemacher’s 1st-grade class. Petway is so proud of your efforts and grateful for the positive impact you’ve made in our community. A huge thank you to the families of Petway that donated peanut butter, jelly, and bread to the kitchen for future meals. You truly make a difference!
Save the Date! Mark your calendars and save the date for the Vineland High School Marching Band car wash and yard sale. There will be opportunities to sign up in the coming days, so gather your yard sale goods and be ready to grab a spot! Proceeds will go to the Vineland High School Marching Band.
Join us for the All City Pops Concert this Thursday, March 20th, at 6:30 pm at the Vineland High School Asselta (South) Gym. The talented Vineland Public Schools music program students are excited to show their latest material! Come out and enjoy an evening of music and community.
On Friday, March 7, the Veterans Memorial School participated in a Staff Wellness Day. Staff rotated through stations of Chair Massage Therapy, Mindfulness Art Therapy, Tanita Scale, Blood Pressure Screening, Healthy Habits Made Simple Presentation, Participated in PickleBall and BasketBall, and enjoyed healthy snacks. This event was coordinated by Nurse Kelli Donnelly in cooperation with the administrative team of AtlantiCare through the Healthy School Grant.
Congratulations to the Veterans Memorial Students of the Month for February and Memorial's Giraffe Hero, James Owens IV!
February students:
Mary Frazier 6th
Sebastian Colon 6th
Sutuan Moore 6th
Kaiden Cook 7th
Alexis Garcia 7th
Nataly Rodriquez Santiago 7th
Isabel Lopez 8th
Edrian Morales Colon 8th
Steven Kohanksy 8th
For the month of March, Mennies School focuses on the character trait of Acceptance. Mrs. Lucienne Prato, basic skills teacher, visited Mrs. Myerson and Mrs. Hadley's first grade students to read the story "Bianca Teaches Acceptance", a book she authored. The story is about a group of students who learn an important lesson about including others and respecting other's differences. After reading the story, students partnered up to discuss and share their own personal strengths and weaknesses and what makes them unique and special. Students were very engaged in the book and follow up activity, and it was a valuable learning experience for all!
Students celebrated Read Across America with Spirit Week for Dr. Seuss’s birthday! Special guest readers from Little Lamb staff read to each classroom to help promote a love of Literacy.
Vineland High School senior Michaela Giuliani competed in the state level of the Poetry Out Loud competition on March 12th at the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, New Jersey. Giuliani’s performance at the Poetry Out Loud State Finals is her second consecutive state-level competition for Vineland, a first for a Vineland High School student. Previous VHS competitors on the state level include Guiliani in 2024, Najvir Dhinju in 2022, Francis Virtucio in 2017, Kathryn Slusarczyk in 2016, Angela Benson in 2015, and Allyson Beres in 2012.
Giuliani was one of only 12 students in the state to compete. The annual New Jersey Poetry Out Loud competition is the dramatic culmination of the statewide poetry recitation contest that began in the fall. Poetry Out Loud is a national arts education program that encourages the study of great poetry by offering free educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition for high school students across the country. Poetry Out Loud is a partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation, and the 55 state and jurisdictional arts agencies. Students initially compete at the classroom and school level, and then in one of six regional contests. The State Finals was the culmination of a statewide initiative that began in the fall of 2024 and included 12,314 New Jersey students from 71 high schools and organizations across the state. Twelve students (two from each region) move on to the State Finals.
Vanessa Rasmussen, Giuliani’s teacher, organizer of the VHS Poetry Out Loud
contest, and member of the NJ Poetry Out Loud Teacher Advisory Board, shared her excitement about Michaela’s achievements: “I couldn’t be prouder of Michaela’s performances. For two years, she has represented Vineland High School with incredible poise at both the Regional and State levels. Her recitations of ‘Time Does Not Bring Relief; You All Have Lied’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay, ‘Flowers’ by Cynthia Zarin, and ‘Hope is the thing with feathers’ by Emily Dickinson were refreshingly honest and deeply engaging. She truly brought the poets’ words to life while making a personal connection to each poem.”
The 2025 State Champion for New Jersey is Hadassah Broughton from Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart in Princeton and the Runner-Up is Ethan Buchanan from Union County Vocational-Technical School Academy for the Performing Arts in Scotch Plains.
New Jersey Poetry Out Loud is a project of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, in collaboration with Count Basie Center for the Arts. Poetry Out Loud is a partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, The Poetry Foundation, and the state arts agencies of the United States. Additional support for NJPOL is provided by ArtPride NJ Foundation and local partners. Since 2005, Poetry Out Loud has grown to reach more than 4.1 million students and 68,000 teachers from 17,000 schools and organizations in every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa.
Each winner at the state level receives $200. The state winner’s school/organization receives $500 for poetry materials. One runner-up in each state receives $100; their school/organization receives $200 for the purchase of poetry materials.
A total of $50,000 in awards and school/organizational stipends will be given at the Poetry Out Loud National Finals, including a $20,000 award for the National Champion, $10,000 for 2nd place, $5,000 for 3rd place, and $1,000 for 4th-9th places. The representing schools/organizations of each of the top nine finalists receive $500 for the purchase of poetry materials. There will be one honorable mention in each of the three national semifinals competitions. Those students will not advance to the finals, but will each receive a $1,000 cash award and a $500 school/organizational stipend. The Poetry Foundation provides and administers all aspects of the monetary prizes awarded for Poetry Out Loud.
The Vineland Education Association, through a PEP grant, hosted ‘Preschool Lunch with Love’ on Friday, March 7th, at Dallago Early Childhood Centers. This event brought families into our classrooms as we celebrated Read Across America Week with more than 120 students’ family members in attendance. Children’s faces lit up seeing their families come into their classrooms to enjoy a wonderful meal and celebrate their love of books together.
Students were invited to wear their pajamas as they enjoyed lunch time and literacy-themed activities with their families. The PEP grant provided literacy activities for students to do with their families, including a make your own bookmark kit, a “things I love” writing wheel, and a “things I love” writing stand. Additionally, snacks and promotional items for every child and family were provided through this Vineland Education PEP grant.
As part of the Vineland Education Association PEP grant, all Dallago students also received a copy of the book Pete the Cat Crayons Rock!. This book is the sixth in the Dallago Preschool Program’s ‘Lena’s Library Legacy’ in memory of Dallago student Evangeline “Lena” Tietjen. In sending this book home with students to add to their personal libraries, we are able to continue encouraging students’ early literacy development and building family relationships.
Vineland All Middle School Productions (VAMP) is hosting its annual Spring Fling fundraiser on Saturday, March 15th from 10 am to 2 pm at Veterans Memorial School. This event is fun for all ages! Come and play carnival games, enjoy food truck vendors, shop local craft vendors, and catch live sneak peek performances from the Frozen Jr. Cast throughout the day.
The event is both indoor and outdoor and will be held rain or shine. Entry is free. All proceeds will benefit the Vineland All Middle School Production (VAMP) of Frozen Jr.
We hope to see you there!!
Join Vineland High School’s Cap N' Dagger for their production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown! Watch Charlie Brown and the entire Peanuts gang explore life’s great questions as they play baseball, struggle with homework, sing songs, swoon over their crushes, and celebrate the joy of friendship.
📅 Showtimes:
📍 April 10 @ 7 PM
📍 April 11 @ 7 PM
📍 April 12 @ 2 PM & 7 PM
🎟 Tickets: Reserved $15 | General Admission $10
Scan the QR code or visit vhs.booktix.com to purchase!
