Thanks to the great work of The Morning Grind Crew, they are excited to announce that they will continue next year and be able to provide this service on a monthly basis.  

By Sr. Vazquez
Students in Spanish III, IV and AP classes had the opportunity to enjoy a full presentation in Spanish from a special guest with a long and successful career.

We are very fortunate to have a substitute for Ms. Brown’s classes who was a Spanish teacher: Mr. Belluzzi. We invited Mr. Belluzzi to talk about his life as an educator, administrator and global citizen.  He started by sharing some family history such as how his grandmother came from Italy and she didn’t speak English.  It was hard for her to navigate in this new country.  When Mr. Belluzzi was fifteen, he received a scholarship and he lived with a Mexican family.  His hosts were doctors who lived with a lot of luxuries that he didn’t have back in the USA.  While in Mexico, he climbed the Pyramid of the Sun and at the top he had the epiphany that the world was huge and there was a whole world for him to explore. He was accepted to study at Georgetown University, but his family couldn’t afford it. Instead, he studied in Fordham with a scholarship and he lived with his grandmother. He started working as a high school Spanish teacher. Later he became a guidance counselor in middle/high school for a few years, and then he worked as a principal and  college professor teaching Spanish, education, and English as a second language. Finally, he accepted the position of superintendent for Montvale Public Schools for many years.
Mr. Belluzzi shared his experiences of traveling in many countries in Europe, Central and South America, and Asia. He reinforced the importance of learning Spanish not just for job opportunities, but also for cultural awareness.
We are very fortunate to have strong leaders in this community, and Mr. Belluzzi is among them. He is helping/working at the high school and has also been a member of the Affordable House Commission in Old Lyme. Thank you Mr. Belluzzi!

By Anna Davis
The robotics team celebrated twenty-five years of building robots last Friday with a special banquet. Team members, mentors, and family from founding years to current students gathered and connected over their common love of robotics. Mr. Derry gave a speech with the help of chat GPT followed by a recorded message from Dean Kamen, the founder of the FIRST Robotics program, congratulating the team. The night finally came to a conclusion with awards for this year's team members and mentors with a special award for Quinn Williams to thank her for her time and dedication this past year, which earned the Team Spirit Award at the Hartford Regional Competition.

On Thursday and Friday I had the special opportunity to visit the ECE Spanish Cultural Topics Classes. It is a course that investigates  the past and present of various Spanish speaking countries through film. After developing and teaching the course for many years, I was inspired to apply for a Fulbright Scholarship to study and learn more about the last dictatorship of Argentina. It was a true privilege and lots of fun to spend some time discussing this topic again in the classroom.

 By: Sr. Vazquez
Students ECE Spanish have just finished a unit about Argentina and the Dirty War. We studied the unfortunate events that Argentinians had to live before, during and after a dictatorship.  We decided to invite Ms. Manfredi (formerly a Spanish teacher at LOLHS and expert on this topic). She went to Argentina to learn and research about that period with the Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching Research Program. 
Students asked a lot of questions about the experience of living in a different country, the challenges she faced there, and the complexity of the whole process and research.
It was a very important experience to validate all information learned in class and also to encourage students to do similar experiences in the future.
Gracias Sra. Manfredi.

On Wednesday morning, Mrs. Lefevre, Mr. Motes and Mr. Wang shared a joint Honor Society Induction ceremony. Each Honor Society presented their service work that they accomplished during the year before presenting their new members.

​Jamie Bucior is LOLHS' Rotary Student of the Month in Business. Jamie has excelled in numerous classes offered by the business department and she is W!SE Certified Financially Literate. She is an enthusiastic leader in and out of the classroom involved in many activities and organizations. Jamie will be attending Bentley in the fall where she will be studying either the finance, management, or a combination of both. 

On Thursday, Hayden Grethel and Mr. Tyrol were presented with a wonderful surprise from Kozlowski Orthodontics. Hayden nominated Mr. Tyrol for being his Unified Sports Team coach and mentor over the past year.  We surprised Hayden in his Chemistry Class and then Hayden presented the award and his framed letter to Mr. Tyrol. Kozlowski Orthodontics awarded both Hayden and Mr. Tyrol with generous gifts. It certainly put a BIG SMILE on everyone!

​We want to make sure that EVERY senior family knows about the Safe Grad party and hope that all graduates attend. If you are a senior parent, please look for an email from SafeGrad this coming week about the event and the permission form to attend. Let us know if you can help or have any questions. 

Each year the Lyme-Old Lyme School District selects one Teacher of the Year and one Employee of the Year who has been nominated by staff, students or parents/guardians.  This honor recognizes staff for outstanding service and commitment to their profession.  Nominations should provide the committee readers enough detail as to why the person is being nominated to help with the selection process.   Please consider completing a nomination form linked below for either a LOL teacher or employee.  The deadline is May 15, 2023.
 
Please know for a teacher or employee to move forward with the nomination process the person must have a minimum of three separate nominations from either co-workers, students or parents/guardians.  Nominations do not have to span multiple stakeholder groups.  For example, a teacher or employee who has three nominations from a co-worker, but none from students or parents,  will still move forward in the process because of the three nominations.
 
Below are the links to the nomination forms:
TEACHER OF THE YEAR NOMINATION FORM (any certified staff member under the Regional 18 Contract.  (Example: Classroom teacher, School Counselor, Library Media Specialist, etc.)
https://www.region18.org/staff/toy-form
 
EMPLOYEE OF TH EYEAR NOMINATION FORM (any non-certified staff member working in the district. (Example:  Maintenance/custodial staff, instructional sssistants/tutors, administrative assistants, etc.)
https://www.region18.org/staff/employee-of-year
 
Please contact Michelle Dean or Jeanne DeLaura with any questions.