Lafayette Regional Elementary School - Franconia, NH

Lafayette Regional School is located in Franconia, nestled into the western slopes of the White Mountain National Forest in northern New Hampshire. Taking full advantage of this beautiful natural setting, our project-based school offers our students many opportunities to create, collaborate, communicate, and critically think. Programs such as our Outdoor Program (hiking), Winter Program (Alpine and Nordic skiing), Robotics (First LEGO League tournaments), the Global Monster Project, and producing documentary videos for competitions are all examples of project-based learning at the elementary school level. We also incorporate the benefits of older students working with younger students in our projects. When our sixth-grade students engage with our first-graders on a project involving carving pumpkins for Halloween, they include counting pumpkins seeds for math, reading/following directions, writing about the experience, and presenting the final product with their young proteges. Students and teachers are highly engaged at our school as we learn together through shared experiences.

"Our whole school teaches and values the whole student" is the powerful message sent to our families and community members. Due to our unique size, our veteran staff, and the full support of our community, we accomplish this sometimes elusive educational goal to a significantly high degree of success. Every adult in our school recognizes the importance of the cognitive, behavioral, and psychomotor domains as they relate to child development theory. We practice what we preach, "the whole school teaches and values the whole student" is not a cliche at Lafayette Regional School, it is the expectation for all staff members, each and every day.