Adam J. Lewis Academy

🎊Cheers to Another Year!🎊

One week ago the entire gathered to celebrate a year of learning in our annual "Moving Up" Ceremony.

We recognized outstanding faculty members and students with three very special awards and the entire audience thundered with applause.

All of our teachers gave moving speeches to their classes, as they lovingly passed them on to the next grade. However, the most exciting "move up" was that of our 7th grade cohort of students who are now officially part of AJLA's first-ever eighth grade class! Next year promises to be an exciting one for them and all of us.

It was a moving morning, and we could not be more proud of the hard work of every AJLA student this school year. Congratulations to all!

🌎 Taking on the world 🌍

AJLA students have been out and about these last several weeks on field trips to several different places.

For each of our grades, these kinds of trips often serve as a culmination to a year of thematic units, and our students are thrilled to be immersed in what they've been learning about. From trips to NYC to visit the Met and the Statue of Liberty to CT local aquarium and museum visits, AJLA's students have been on the go!

Field Trips are such important experiences for our students. Right now we are in the midst of our AJLA Spring Fundraiser: Supply our Success (link in bio), and you can help us fund more of these meaningful moments.

On our fundraising website, you'll find this and a variety of other opportunities to give. We invite you to support the areas that resonate most with you. Every contribution makes a meaningful difference, and we are deeply grateful for your generosity.

🎣 Teach a child to fish... 🎣

This semester, AJLA partnered with the Trout in the Classroom program to raise our very own brown trout. Through studying their life cycles in STEAM classes, students practiced observation and data-recording skills while caring for the fish over the past five months.

Representatives from Aspetuck Land Trust helped coordinate the trout’s release into the wild, and our second graders joined for this special final step in the process.

Students also learned basic fishing skills from volunteers with CT DEEP and thanks to a generous donation from Trout Unlimited and Bass Pro Shops, each child received a brand new rod and reel. With their new skills and equipment in hand, second graders spent a beautiful spring afternoon fishing with family members before finally releasing the brown trout into Bunnell Pond here in Bridgeport.

Partnerships like these are part of what makes AJLA so special. Right now we are in the midst of our AJLA Spring Fundraiser: Supply our Success (link in bio), and you can help us build more of these meaningful connections that lead to important experiences for our students.

On our fundraising website, you'll find this and a variety of other opportunities to give. We invite you to support the areas that resonate most with you. Every contribution makes a meaningful difference, and we are deeply grateful for your generosity.

🎭 Break a Leg 6th Graders 🎭

The class is performing for the next two nights in their production of Seussical Jr.

After many months of rehearsals, memorizing lines, and learning choreography, tonight is opening night, and we couldn't be prouder of their hard work. If you'd like to catch the show yourself, head to in Norwalk at 6pm tonight or 7pm on Friday.

Right now we are in the midst of our AJLA Spring Fundraiser: Supply our Success (link in bio), and you can help ensure that the AJLA Middle Schoolers always have this special performance opportunity by giving to our ARTS FUND.

On our fundraising website, you'll find this and a variety of other opportunities to give. We invite you to support the areas that resonate most with you. Every contribution makes a meaningful difference, and we are deeply grateful for your generosity.

💕 Partnering with Families 💕

As the school year winds down, we want to be sure to thank all of our incredible AJLA families. These adults are truly engaged in all that we're doing at school, and their partnership is one of the most important aspects in our students' success.

Family members at AJLA put their own hearts and souls into this school too. They volunteer their time on a daily basis through our Breakfast Program or for big events like our International Festival. They have committed to our reading initiative alongside their students and plan the cast parties for our musicals. They participate in workshops, lend their voices in community gatherings, and pitch in wherever is needed. We are so grateful to each one of our AJLA family members for all of the ways that you are willing to get involved and learn alongside us and your children.

Right now we are in the midst of our AJLA Spring Fundraiser: Supply our Success (link in bio). A few of the categories you'll find there directly support our families. We offer language classes at no cost to our families in order for them to improve their English. Some of our students' parents and guardians are enrolled in continuing education courses that AJLA funds. At AJLA, we believe that student success is closely tied to how connected, supported and engaged our families are.

On our fundraising website, you'll find these and a variety of other opportunities to give. We invite you to support the areas that resonate most with you. Every contribution makes a meaningful difference, and we are deeply grateful for your generosity.

💚 Mission Driven💚

Check out the newest article featuring Patty and Julie, co-founders of our beloved school, as they discuss what drove them to start Adam J. Lewis Academy and the exciting future ahead! These women have been unwavering in their commitment to address some of the inequities in educational access that exist in Fairfield County. Their goal has always been and remains still: to give all children a solid foundation in learning to help them build a more hopeful and equitable future for themselves and their community.

There's no better time to support the school and mission that Patty and Julie have poured so much into. Right now we are in the midst of our AJLA Spring Fundraiser: Supply our Success. We need your help as the school grows to it's full capacity next year serving children in PreK-8th Grade.

On our fundraising website (link in bio), you'll find a variety of opportunities to give, each directly connected to our students and classrooms. We invite you to support the areas that resonate most with you. Every contribution makes a meaningful difference, and we are deeply grateful for your generosity.

Thank you for sharing our school's origin story and shining a light on the work being done here every day.

LIVE NOW- Supply Our Success: AJLA Spring Fundraiser

Giving Link in bio.

Each spring, our community looks forward to gathering in person to celebrate and support Adam J. Lewis Academy. This year, we've chosen to bring our fundraiser online. While we will miss being together on campus, this format gives us the opportunity to directly support the immediate needs of our classrooms and students as we finish the year strong and look ahead to summer and beyond.

For this fundraiser, we asked our AJLA Community a simple but powerful question:
What do we need to enhance the AJLA experience for years to come?
Their answers shaped everything you see here.

You'll find a variety of opportunities to give, each directly connected to our students and classrooms. We invite you to support the areas that resonate most with you. Every contribution makes a meaningful difference, and we are deeply grateful for your generosity.

🍎 Let's Hear it for the Teachers! 🍎

As this comes to a close, we wanted to shoutout the incredible educators at AJLA who pour so much into our students every day. Their expertise, passion, empathy, enthusiasm, and more are unmatched, and our students reap the benefits.

As the school has grown, so has our faculty and staff, and it's impossible to capture all of them in a single post, but we are lucky to call this incredible team our own.

Dear AJLA teachers and staff- thank you for all that you do. You are truly embodied.

📖 They say never meet your hero… unless your hero is an AUTHOR

At AJLA we have been humbled and honored by recent visits from beloved children's and young adult authors here at school. Our students have had the pleasure of meeting some of the people who have brought some of their favorite stories to life on the page, and the impact is truly lasting.

Lauren Tarshis, author of the "I Survived" series, spoke to our 3rd-5th grade classes about why she became a writer and how she finds inspiration for books sometimes from kids just like them. Our AJLA students recommended titles like "I Survived the COVID-19 Epidemic" and "I Survived the Salem Witch Trials" to name a few. ()

Christina Geist, author of the "Growing with Buddy" series as well as "Before You Fly Away" and more, has dedicated her time and energy to an ongoing project with our Middle School students- helping them write and publish picture books of their own. Her inspiring visits have lit a fire in our oldest students as they engage in the creative writing process for themselves. ()

Tommy Greenwald, author of "Dinged" and other books in the Walthorne series and more, told our 6th and 7th graders about how he based some of his work on the experiences of his own children playing youth sports. He asked our Middle Schoolers about the pressure they feel and gave advice on prioritizing oneself even at a young age. ()

Lizzy Rockwell, acclaimed and beloved picture book author, drew wonderous illustrations right in front of our Kindergarten and First Grade students and even previewed a soon-to-be-released title for them. ()

Hank Herman, author of the "Super Hoops" series, captivated our 2nd Graders with his basketball themed early chapter books right in the middle of March Madness. He even created an activity where students had the opportunity to write their own ending to a book he shared.

We are incredibly grateful to each of these real-life heroes and authors who have taken time to come to share their passion and their craft with our AJLA students. They've inspired our whole community!

🐦 Let's Go Gulls! 🐦

Yesterday we celebrated our community and our Middle School athletes with a Spring Spirit Day, and we held our first (soon-to-be annual) Student vs. Faculty game.

We gathered in the yard to watch the and students take on a fierce team of faculty members in a fun game of volleyball. Our younger students were delighted to see their teachers compete against the Middle Schoolers, and both teams put up an impressive fight.

In the afternoon our boys and girls lacrosse teams played opponents from other schools, and the girls delivered a very special Spirit Day, home-game win! Perhaps no one was more excited to hear the final whistle and cheer for the winning team than the students who rode a bus to the field and shouted from the bleachers for every goal scored.

What a day. What a community. 💚