Sabina Larkin, Principal  e-mail:slarkin@northport.k12.ny.us   I would like to welcome you to Ocean Avenue Elementary School and give you a brief overview of our wonderful school.  Ocean Avenue Elementary School is a warm and welcoming learning community where students learn through experience.  Our curriculum is carefully framed on knowledge about children’s physical, social and intellectual growth.  It is based on what children need to learn and research about how they learn.  At Ocean Avenue we believe that it is important to take care of ourselves, each other, and our school and community.  We have zero tolerance for bullying and actively work toward teaching children how to interact appropriately.  We believe in a careful balance of teacher-directed and child-initiated learning and strive to develop problem-solving ability both socially and academically.  Working with parents as partners in education is a priority and tradition at Ocean.  Parental involvement and understanding is key.  Our teachers provide an orderly, consistent and predictable approach to learning that nurtures empowerment and self-respect and the social skills of cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy and self-control.  Our goals are respectful, relevant and realistic.  Each student is viewed as an individual with a unique learning style. Our school motto, TEAM, Together Everyone Achieves More, characterizes the philosophy at Ocean Avenue.  Teachers, parents and community members consistently strive to build upon the quality program already in existence at our school.  We follow a continuous improvement model where all staff members are engaged in perfecting their skills and seeking out opportunities to enrich the lives of our students.  Our ultimate goal is to ensure the social and academic growth and success for each and every child entrusted to us, one child at a time. We continue to be part of a unique partnership with Columbia’s Teacher’s College Reading/Writing Project.  This school has been part of the partnership since the 2002-2003 school year.  Reading workshop and writing workshop are key components in our balanced literacy approach.  Students engage in word work, guided reading and writing, and individual conferences in an effort to bring each student to their full potential.  Not only have the standardized scores risen, but our students have developed a true love of reading and writing.  We continue to use this research-based philosophy as we shape the literate lives of our youngsters.    We at Ocean take tremendous pride in our caring school family.  We provide exciting, productive and enjoyable learning experiences for all of our students.  We thank you for your interest in our school and invite you to explore our website.  Your comments and questions are welcome and appreciated.               Ocean Tides is a monthly newsletter intended to keep the Ocean Avenue Community informed about what we are doing in school and other issues we feel may be important to you. To view the current or previously published issues, click on the newsletter. Ocean Tides Newsletter