About Aldrich

Aldrich School is a partnership of educators, parents, and community members providing an unsurpassed, supportive and safe learning environment for our students.  Aldrich Elementary School has readily accepted the challenge and responsibility for developing a strong relationship between the home, school, and community.  This collaborative approach fosters and encourages students to become life-long learners who value themselves and others in this ever-changing world.

We are proud to share that Aldrich School has been awarded NJ "Future Ready" certification for our commitment to digital learning. Our school continues to engage students in opportunities to prepare them with the skills necessary to be successful in a global society.  

The Aldrich School staff delivers rich programs with skill and enthusiasm.  Our curricula are based on research and support the New Jersey Student Learning Standards.  Students and teachers at Aldrich School continually integrate technology throughout the teaching and learning process.  All of our students are provided with a personal Mac Book Air which is utilized to access educational programs including the Schoology Learning Management System, the RAZ Kids Reading Program, the Pearson Math Program and the Mystery Science Program.

While our individual classrooms regularly integrate STEAM activities into instruction, the highlight of our program is our Makerspace located in our Media Center.  Our Makerspace promotes personalized learning by offering a variety of engineering and building, art, and technology stations for students to engage in meaningful real world problem solving. The days of simply borrowing books are long gone from this continually evolving and always inspiring environment.  Along with the opportunity to choose a wonderful piece of literature to read, our students are challenged to create, collaborate, communicate, and inquire, based upon a wide range of media and information literacy, technology, and literary themes.  Each unit begins with a research or read aloud piece and evolves to challenge students to explore the topic further, make a physical product to represent their learning, and reflect or present on the experience. 

The STEAM environment expands into our Computer Lab where students regularly participate in learning the basics of computer science. These coding experiences have students writing and debugging algorithms while solving problems. With the help of our PTO and grant funding, students have access to Future Ready materials such as Ozobots, Cubelets, Little Bits, Sphero, Code.org, mBots and Scratch.

All of our classrooms offer enrichment activities which enhance our curricula and provide opportunities to extend and deepen knowledge. Our remediation program is provided by our Academic Support Instruction Team. The Special Education program is inclusive of Resource Room Teachers, In-Class Support Personnel and Child Study Team members.  Unique learning and behavioral needs of students are addressed through the Response to Intervention framework.

The Aldrich Community takes great pride in its inclusion of all stakeholders in the educational process.    Our School Improvement Panels, Professional Learning Communities, Data Teams, Grade Level Teams and Faculty Teams are comprised of staff members from all areas of the educational environment working towards the goals of supporting instruction, expanding student learning and preparing our students for success in the digital age.  

Our Parent/Teacher Organization is a group of committed educators and parents/guardians who work collaboratively to support our students.  By giving their time and talents, and by donating technical equipment and educational supplements for our classrooms, our PTO is a vital component in the process of preparing our students for Future Ready success.

Our Physical Education teachers provide opportunities for students to improve cardio-vascular fitness levels and skill development.  All students participate in health classes and our 5th graders receive Family Life instruction. Breakfast programs are available for all students.  The PAWS and STARS character education programs encourage our students to become caring, independent, responsible citizens that actively and successfully participate in a diverse, global community.

Aldrich is proud to offer Student Council and Newspaper Clubs to our 4th and 5th grade students.  Our PTO currently offers the MAD Science and STEMbotics Lego Robotics After School Programs. These programs explore a series of cross-curricular, theme-based activities while developing skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, as well as language, literacy and social studies.  

As our mission of “Continued Improvement in All Areas” indicates, the Aldrich School Community continually assesses our current levels of achievement and identifies areas in which we feel we need to grow as a school and as a digital community.  Through the on-going process of self-analysis, the stakeholders of Aldrich School collaboratively create goals based upon their findings.  Thus, Aldrich School demonstrates its commitment to growth and expansion into new areas.

Aldrich School encourages and embraces the diverse talents available in the community. Our PTO works collaboratively with our staff to provide events and programs that extend and enhance the curricula. The PTO has continued to provide endless support for school initiatives and has worked closely with our staff to foster academic excellence and meaningful learning opportunities for our students. A strong partnership with our k-2 "Sister School", Taunton Elementary, supports our school community.

Our school community partnership ultimately benefits Aldrich students.  As a result, our students excel in many areas.   Our achievements in the academic realm are mirrored in the areas of social and emotional development.  Aldrich students model citizenship, respect, kindness, and good manners on a daily basis.   Community service projects enable the students to become a part of the larger community.  Highlights include student visitations to the Howell Township Senior Center; Disaster Relief Efforts orchestrated by our students; food drives to benefit the Howell Food Pantry; supporting our Troops stationed overseas; and a commitment to instill in our students the importance of honoring veterans of the Armed Forces.

The strong personal and professional commitment exhibited by the Aldrich Staff allows our school to effectively collaborate with parents to instill the love of learning in our students. Through this cooperative approach, staff and parents collectively provide meaningful experiences for our children.