Northport K-8 Principal Glenn Rustay and Media Specialist and volunteer coordinator Lynne Gruszka, and the entire school community are proud to honor Senior Volunteer of the Year Kay Egan and Adult Volunteer of the Year Suzi Scott. The two women were honored at a reception at the St. Lucie County School Board recently along with many other volunteers who work diligently to support students, teachers and schools’ staff.  Mrs. Egan and Mrs. Scott assist teachers in any way possible, including cooking, mentoring students, running copies, purchasing supplies and goodies as well as assisting the PTO and the school administration. Special thanks and accolades … Read More

Northport K-8 Volunteer of the Year Suzi Scott, pictured, received a very special congratulations for all her efforts and hard work on behalf of the teachers and students of Northport K8 School recently. The letter, from Florida State Senator Joe Negron, congratulated Mrs. Scott for being a “vital thread in the fabric of our community!” Negron thanked Mrs. Scott for her dedication and commitment to the students and teachers and he expressed a shared pride with her family, friends and everyone at Northport.  Mrs. Scott is diligent in her work on behalf of all children at the school and she is … Read More

Northport K-8 School Veteran Partner in Education Bill Arnold returns frequently to campus to bring information, news and gifts of American flags, pins and other articles to bring smiles to students of all ages. Mr. Arnold recently returned shortly after a classroom visit to third grade teachers Megan Castiglia and Susan Poveromo’s classes for a Veteran’s Day Commemoration. His gifts were framed photographs of each student sporting his own military jacket and beret from the Vietnam War era. Students were so thrilled to receive the photographs that they could take home as mementoes of his many visits to the classes. … Read More

Northport is pleased to unveil a beautiful buddy bench in the school courtyard. The buddy bench was made from plastic caps collected by the children at the school. The bench was donated by Keep Saint Lucie Beautiful. The project was organized by ASD teacher, Hannah Licameli and her students. The lessons in recycling have been invaluable to the students. Many thanks to our Parents in Education from First United Methodist church for attending the unveiling.

Northport welcomed twelve local veterans into the school media center recently to honor Veterans Day and to teach students about words with very important meanings like service, sacrifice, integrity, grit, and commitment. The group of veterans are an integral part of the fabric of Northport and they bring their very important message to the children of the school regularly. Students in Jennifer Lusardi’s and Kristin Schrader’s second grade classes, Michelle Kemp’s third grade class, and middle grades students from the seventh and eighth grade Stingray and Dolphins team were engaged and asked important questions. Students at Northport are blanketed in … Read More

Northport K-8 School administrators and teachers are over the moon with the news that the school has been “adopted” by the local Walmart Distribution Center. On a recent morning, teachers were called to the Media Center for a surprise visit from several representatives from the Distribution Center. The group expressed to teachers that several of the staff who work at the center have children who attend Northport and that they would like to partner with the school to enhance community relations and to extend a helping hand to give teachers added support. The Walmart representatives distributed twenty $50 gift cards … Read More

Northport was so proud and thrilled to host the Speakers Bureau with Dr. Donna Mills recently. The Speakers Bureau is now in seven SLC schools and the guests who are invited to speak and interact with students are meant to help inspire, motivate, encourage and teach students how to make good choices. Each guest selected by Dr. Mills is a person who is willing to stand up for what is right and one who is a model for inspiration. At Northport recently, students were engaged and inspired by several guests. Along with Dr. Mills and Dr. Kenneth Mills, guests included … Read More

Northport K-8 School third graders received a special visit from Sunset Rotary club member Joe the Biker recently. Joe Wojcik, known as Joe the Biker, gave a dynamic introduction in the use of the dictionary integrating words and information from a bullying presentation that has made his name synonomous with an anti bullying message. Joe the Biker demonstrated how to look up words and information in the dictionary and also donated a class set of a books written by Joe the Biker called “Call Me Yubby!” The students were thrilled with the presentation and many thanks go to the Sunset Rotary Club.

Northport 3rd graders recently enjoyed the IRSC Hallstrom Planetarium. This was a wonderful learning experience for a group of really awesome students, teachers and parent chaperones. ❤ ? ? ?

Students in Northport K-8 Janine Ferro Weicks’ third grade RTI class accepted their teacher’s challenge and guidance and produced top of the line PowerPoint presentations recently. Students declared the main concept and provided plenty of rich supporting details when building their presentations. Students worked cooperatively, with Mrs. Weicks serving as coach and mentor through the process of completing slides. Students presented information about some of their favorite topics such as wrestling, soccer, music and the author, Rick Riordan. Students also presented information about themselves, including their likes, dislikes, favorite teachers and favorite types of music. Students presented their slide shows using correct volume, good … Read More

There was the most wonderful visit to the Northport Media Center with Mrs. Kemp and Ms. Lusardi’s 3rd graders recently. The students buddy read holiday books from the huge basket of book collections in the Northport Media Center, read holiday and Christmas stories by themselves and then listened to “Twas the Night Before Christmas” read by Mrs. Gruszka, Northport Media Specialist. and teachers sang “Jingle Bells,” “Silver Bells,” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”  Then the students  sang “Hot, Hot Chocolate,” a song that they sang together at the Holiday Christmas Concert held at Northport as a gift to … Read More

Northport K-8 third grade teacher Melanie Polascak organized a Space Walk for her third grade team as a culminating activity on a space/solar system unit of study. Students and teachers used flags to mark the sun and then made a live scale model of the solar system. Each step between flags represented 30 million miles in the real solar system. Students marked 36 million miles as the first step in the solar system. Students took six steps to Mercury from the sun. Students and teachers then counted footsteps using the scale model to reach all planets. The final planet, Neptune, is 3.7 billion miles from … Read More

Northport K-8 School third grade students in Melanie Polascak’s and Glenda Taylor’s classes have been working on a combined unit of study to determine learning data and to evaluate the effectiveness of class rotations on the study of Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. Students and instructors used a variety of resources to bring the unit of study full circle. Culminating activities to bring resolution to the unit occured recently in the teachers’ classrooms such as making pinatas from Mexico, making moose antlers from Canada and learning to play dominos and how to do the limbo from the Caribbean. Students also enjoyed a variety … Read More

Northport K-8 third graders in Linda Beidler, John Fallon, Janine Wiecks, Diana Lankow, Melanie Polascak, Glenda Taylor and Tiffany Tredor’s classes took the stress out of their first FCAT test by taking whacks at a homeade pinata on Friday in the school’s courtyard.  As each student took a whack and showed who was boss, they were urged to shout out a learned test taking strategy.  Stategies called out were read the entire passage before attempting to answer, consider key words, underline the key words, cross out distractors, read the questions first, answer from the last question to the first, substitute … Read More

Northport third graders in Melanie Polascak’s class contructed a quilt for hope to learn about the history of September 11, 2001. Ms. Polascak used a PowerPoint slide show to tell the students all about the Survivor Tree at Ground Zero, the story of one small pear tree that survived the devastion of that day. The instructor encouraged the students to have hope for the future and like the pear tree, America will survive tough times. The third graders were extremely proud of their quilt, and Ms. Polascak’s lesson allowed students to digest elaborate information in a concrete yet simple manner!

Northport VPK-8 School third grade students in Susan Poveromo’s class learned all about the life of Helen Keller recently in a heartfelt lesson in commemoration of Disability Awareness Month. Students read all about Helen Keller who lived her life in virtual darkness. They learned that Helen was born in 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama and that Helen was born a bright and lively baby but at nineteen months old contracted scarlet fever which left her blind, deaf, and unable to speak. Students learned about the special touch of Helen’s teacher, Annie Sullivan, and they also learned that “kindness is the language … Read More

Each year, every Northport student participates in the Young Author’s program. The program is a wonderful opportunity for students to demonstrate that each can use the complete writing process effectively. Writing and editing the books and then publishing the final, revised book is a commitment to engaged learning. The Young Author’s writing process focuses directly on student curriculum for all grade levels in English/Language Arts and reading. Standards are applied to student organization, draft, reflection, revision, correction and then finally, publication and presentation. Working on the Young Author’s is common ground for all grade levels and a terrific platform for … Read More

What a wonderful morning at Northport! ?? We welcomed retired Army Sgt. Bill Arnold, our Veteran Partner in Education as well as three retired military servicemen from American Legion Post 318. The gentlemen accepted a poppy collage to honor all veterans made by Northport art students. The collage will hang on the wall at Post 318. Thank you so much to the entire post for coming out to Northport. Veterans and our military mean the world to our school. It was with a free breath that we all smiled through the presentation. ❤ ?? A big Northport salute ❤ ??

Many thanks to our partners in education, First United Methodist Church of Port Saint Lucie. They brought 400 Christmas cookies for Northport teachers and staff. They support our children and staff in so many ways. The congregation, along with Rad and Pat Orlandi, are true blessings to us all. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone ❤ ?, Pictured is Rad Orlandi with his grandson, Adrian, and Northport PTO member, Erica Richardson.