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!
The VHS Marching Band extends its heartfelt gratitude to the generous local businesses and residents of Vineland for their incredible support. The band thrives because of their contributions, along with the dedication of the band parents.
To personally express their appreciation, Color Guard Captain Lacie Buckingham and her father, Donald, hand-delivered thank-you frames to the businesses, which were warmly received.
As the 2025-2026 season approaches, there will be many opportunities to support these talented students and faculty—so stay tuned! Exciting events hosted by the band are coming up soon!
Eight top chefs from the district’s elementary schools will prepare to show off their cooking chops in the 12th annual Future Chef Competition, to be held on Wednesday, April 2, at Wallace Middle School. The theme of this year’s competition is “Favorite Chili Recipe.”
The idea behind this event is to help educate the students about healthy eating habits, according to Purvesh Patel, Food Service Director. Judging will be based on the following criteria: originality, kid-friendly, ease of preparation, healthy attributes, plate presentation, and taste.
Fifth-grade students from all district elementary schools had the chance to submit a recipe for consideration, with one student chosen from each school. This year’s competitors and their dishes include:
Yair Rojas from Sabater Elementary School making Yair's Homemade Chili
Peyton O'Donnell from Petway Elementary School making White Chicken Chili
Delilah Bogan from D’Ippolito Elementary School making DD's Dancing Chili
Dallas Johnson from Rossi Elementary School making Pulled Pork Chili
Samantha Pacitto from Winslow Elementary School making Sam & Dad's Famous Chili
Jaycion Palmer from Mennies making Elementary School Jay's Sweet & Spicy Chili
Mia Gonzalez from Durand making Elementary School The Dream Chili
The winner will receive the title of Future Chef and take home an amazing prize package. The competition will be recorded and shared on the district’s YouTube channel, VLDSchoolsTV, after the event.
At last night’s Board of Education meeting, Athletic Director Sylvester Cifaloglio presented an overview of the winter athletic season. A slide presentation shared highlights from each team’s season, recognizing the contributions of their senior athletes. The Board took this opportunity to honor these seniors, acknowledging their hard work, commitment, and leadership throughout the season. It was a fitting way to celebrate our student-athletes' accomplishments and our coaching staff's dedication!
Thank you to the students from Durand Elementary School for leading the flag salute at the March 12 Board of Education meeting! 🇺🇸
Vineland High School class officers, Student Government Association leaders, members of FFA, and other student representatives met with Director of Special Projects and Operations Ismael Bermudez and other district personnel on Tuesday morning for the third roundtable meeting of the school year.
The meeting began with a lunch provided by Sodexo, the district’s food service provider. After a welcome and brief introduction by Bermudez, the students worked within their grade level or group and were asked to come up with one word to describe their current feelings about school. They then remained in their groups and chose either parents, students, staff, or community members as a topic and brainstormed ways that each of these groups could better impact and improve the high school experience.
Superintendent Llano and Mr. Bermudez will meet with the student representatives once more before the end of the school year to continue discussing ways to improve the student experience at VHS.
Durand students traded their dolphins for horses during Read Across America Week, with a Kentucky Derby theme: “Read for the Roses.” The school was transformed into “Durand Downs,” complete with horse and derby-themed bulletin boards that were also related to reading.
During the week, students enjoyed treats of derby cupcakes, stickers, erasers, and a free book for everyone. Older grades “read for the roses” to the younger grades for buddy reading on Monday. On Tuesday, we enjoyed our annual visit from the National Honor Society, who shared their love of reading and high school experiences. Our community guest readers enhanced our week Wednesday by sharing their time and talents with us and joining in the fun of voting and predicting the winners of our own school-based derby. Students & staff were excited to use the reading skill of predicting when they discussed and voted for who they thought the winner of the race would be as well. Our four jockeys and their horses (Galloping Greco and Forever a Winner, Charming Chuck and Harry Trotter, Zen Zion and SeaBiscuit, and Athletic Appleby and Hoof Hearted) took center stage on the playground on Friday, where Athletic Appleby and his trusty steed Hoof Hearted swept the race! Students and staff donned their best derby hats and attire to cheer them on for “the fastest two minutes in sports.”
The Durand Derby was the highlight of our week and a perfect way to culminate our derby-themed Read Across America Week! Thank you to all who helped make Read for the Roses a success.
Come out for a fun Saturday and support VHS!
Students in Mrs. Wolfe's AP Seminar classes at VHS have made a great start to Task 2! They recently concluded reading and synthesizing a unit of stimulus materials provided by the College Board. This culminating assignment allowed them to both literally and figuratively make connections between sources and challenged them to find common themes among disparate materials. Next steps for these students include conducting extended academic research, writing 2,000-word argument papers, and then creating, delivering, and defending their 6-8-minute TedTalk-style presentations highlighting their research findings and possible solutions to the problems they identified.
The VHS Athletic Hall of Fame induction is one month from today!
Tickets can be purchased on specific dates and times, but don’t forget—the Google Form must be completed prior to purchasing.
Ticket Sale Dates and Times:
• January: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays
• February: Tuesdays and Thursdays
• April: 1st–7th (No tickets will be sold after April 7, 2025)
Times: Morning: 7:30 AM–9:00 AM | Afternoon: 2:30 PM–3:00 PM
Google form: https://forms.gle/ufyCPMGxSHzPLAzu9
We’re incredibly grateful to our Board of Education members for taking the time to visit so many of our schools during Read Across America week. Their commitment to fostering a love of reading and engaging with our students makes a real difference. Thank you for sharing your time, stories, and enthusiasm with our classrooms!
On Tuesday, March 4th, the VHS S.H.A.P.E. (Students Helping Animals, Plants, and Environment)Club visited students at D'Ippolito Elementary School for Read Across America. The high school students spent their day going from classroom to classroom reading various nature themes stories to all the elementary students. After reading, many of the students fielded questions about what it was like to be in high school.
Congratulations to Junior Rashee Burton, the winner of the CTE Carnival T-shirt design contest! Rashee’s creative vision brought the event logo to life, earning him the top spot among 11 talented applicants. This project was a true collaboration—Mrs. Griffiths’ Graphic Design 3 class teamed up with Ms. Kaenzig’s Marketing class to follow real-world industry standards. Marketing students developed a creative brief, and designers brought those ideas to life. Rashee’s winning design is now proudly featured on staff T-shirts and event signage, making a bold statement at this year’s CTE Carnival. Way to go, Rashee!
Winslow Whales and their families celebrated “The Magic of Reading” on Thursday evening! The excitement started with Breakfast for Dinner and ended with the classic bunny in a hat magic trick! All students were able to select a few books to add to their home libraries!
Read Across America is always an exciting week for the students at Marie Durand Elementary School. This year, Ms. Giblin’s third-grade class had a very special guest reader. Senator Testa came to read one of his favorite Dr. Seuss books, The Lorax. Before reading, he shared with the class some of the very important parts of his job that help local businesses make good choices to protect the environment. They also had a discussion about different types of pollution that they saw in the book. After reading, several students shared different ways that they could “speak for the trees,” like the Lorax. The students were inspired to write about ways that they would help the environment in their own neighborhoods. As always, Ms. Giblin’s class loves to show off their creativity through artwork, so they made their own Truffula trees. They also showed off their artistic and writing skills with heartfelt cards of gratitude that they will be sending off to Senator Testa. They shared with him some of their own ideas of how to protect our environment. In the wise words of the Lorax ~ UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s NOT! It was very clear that Senator Testa and the students care greatly for their community. They are looking forward to his next visit!
Ms. Galan's 6th grade ELA class at Veterans Memorial School received a visit from Mr. Cedric Holmes, Board of Education member. He read a chapter from their current novel study, "The Watsons Go to Birmingham," and had a conversation about being kind to others and staying true to who you are. Students loved having Mr. Holmes!
Thank you to all of the guest readers who visited All Kids First Preschool this week for Read Across America!
