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Assistant Principal, Lacey Township High School (NJ)

Adjunct Professor, The College of New Jersey (NJ)

Adjunct Professor, Ocean County College (NJ)

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I'm originally from a suburb of Philadelphia, the son of a social worker and an attorney, the middle child of tight-knit group of three siblings.  I'm a product of the public school system, and I believe in our country's public schools.

Education was a priority in our household.  My mom deeply cared about how we did in school and how we treated others.  My dad constantly reminded us of the troubles he encountered later in life as a high-school dropout.  His negative experience of public school continue to be a driving force behind why I work as an educator.  I don't want school to be a negative experience for any child.

Upon graduation from college, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to play minor league baseball in the Seattle Mariners Organization.  It was during this time, I realized two things: getting to the major leagues was going to be a difficult task and teaching and coaching was something I wanted to pursue after my playing days were over.  As anyone can tell you, the pay for minor leaguers is not a lot.  To make ends meet, I found myself giving numerous hitting lessons and giving many math tutoring sessions during the winter months.  To watch students improve in front of my eyes was a gratifying feeling, and I knew I wanted to be an educator.

Upon my release from Mariners, I worked as a college graduate assistant baseball coach, completed my student teaching in the Poconos, and landed a full-time mathematics teaching job at Hunterdon Central Regional HS (NJ).  I wanted to have a bigger impact on students and broaden my career opportunities in education, so I earned my Masters degree in Educational Leadership and landed a Vice Principalship at Lacey Township HS (NJ).  For the past five years, I've worked as a VP, an adjunct professor at The College of New Jersey and Ocean County College, a doctoral student at Drexel University, and most importantly and most challenging, a father of a 5-month old baby boy.

My professional goal is to land a principalship and continue to help students have the most positive experience in public schools.

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Modeling Motivation:  The process within an individual that stimulate behavior and channel it in ways that should benefit the organization as a whole. (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2021)

Leadership Over Management: Managerial Responsibilities will take care of themselves if a leader initiates the tone of the school district, listens to key stakeholders, and implements decisions that always put students first

Lifelong Learning:  The leader of any school district must commit to a life full of learning, experiencing new things, traveling the world, understanding other perspectives, and above all, always looking to improve.

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Participatory management allows employees to feel empowered as superiors listen to their needs and make decisions based on input from their subordinates.  (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2021)

Theory Y Leadership views work as natural as play or rest; commitment to objectives is a function of rewards for achievement; people accept and seek responsibility (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2021)

Understanding the immaturity-maturity continuum is essential to gaining the trust of the organization.  Teachers and professionals are used being assumed immature.  We need to revamp this way of thinking to assume competence to staff and students alike.

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Everyday, as leaders we run LAPPS:

L - Listen

A - Available

P - Present

P - Positive

S - Supportive

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Step 1:  Building a Mission and Vision upon Core Beliefs

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Step 1:  Building a Mission and Vision upon Core Beliefs

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Upon entry into the superintendent seat, building a mission and vision will be the first step.

"Statements of core values do not merely answer the question, 'What do we believe? but also address the question, 'Based upon our core beliefs, how will we behave within our organization in order to
achieve our vision?'" (Gurley et al, 2014)

To this end, I plan to host a "Meet the Superintendent Night."  After that, I will look to form a Cabinet of fellow administrators, teachers, students, community members, and parents with the sole goal of defining our mission upon our core values and setting forth a strategic plan to set forth the standards of behavior for our mission.

I will review recent Middle States Accreditation documents for recommendations from third-party administrators.

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Step 2: An Audit of the Organizational Structure and Climate

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Step 2: An Audit of the Organizational Structure and Climate

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Early on in the tenure of my superintendency, visibility in the hallways of all schools will be a priority.

"When you operate from the self-transcending, enhanced sense of self -- from a place that is both inside and outside the observer's organization -- you see yourself as part of the system and you start to see how people enact that system" (Scharmer, 2016).  Knowing when to lead from the balcony and when to lead from the dance floor is a successful trait in a leader.

Routine walk-throughs of classrooms will be an important piece of the early days of my superintendency.

I will form a Equity Action Council to "identify and recommend developing structures that would increase the understanding and implementation of inclusive practices throughout the district" (Holley, 2021)

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I believe establishing the culture and ensuring equitable practices are the foundation of any solid organization.

Once that has been met, I will develop a team to investigate the current state of our curriculum and assessment.  I would look to implement Rubicon Atlas and similar programs to refine and clean up our K-12 curriculum maps, with updated standards, and using surrounding school districts as models.  All information should be made public on our school district website.

Identifying achievement gaps and demographic groups that struggle on standardized testing will be important.  If there are any underlying trends and disproportionate rates of underachievement for any class or ethnicity, building principals will build an action plan with myself to address such patterns.

A robust RTI program will be implemented throughout the district to improve our instruction to our struggling learners. I will look to declassify our special education students, promoting an inclusive approach. I believe all teachers should operate as special education teachers, truly customizing the learning and differentiating instruction consistently.

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Step 4: Human Capital and Leadership Development

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Step 4: Human Capital and Leadership Development

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After addressing our instructional and assessment environments, I will build relationships with our human resource departments to improve our knowledge of human capital and leadership development.

For each new job posting, I would like to incorporate a few new norms:

1.  Create a standardized interview Form for the entire district.

2.  Form an interview committee of at least one administrator, a teacher/guidance counselor, a student, and possibly the person whose position is being posted.

3.  Incorporate demonstration lessons into the interview process.  Provide students exit surveys to assess their thoughts on the best demo lesson.

4.  Final background checks and interviews done by central office and myself.

I will look to hold a retreat for all administrators in August.  The retreat will be at an off-site location with the intention of self-care, motivation, and thinking outside the box.  One of the goals, aside from building trust within the team, would be for the  administrators to turnkey this approach for their staff as well.

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Gurley, D., Peters, G., Collins, L., & Fifolt, M. (2014).  Mission, vision, values, and goals: An exploration of key organizational statements and daily practice in schools.  J Educ Change. 16: 217 - 242.

Holley, A. (2021).  Championing equity and diversity: A school community in need evaluates each action for its cultural impact.  School Administrator, March issue.

Lunenburg, F.C., & Ornstein, O. (2021). Educational Administration: Concepts and Practices, 7th Edition. Thousand Oaks, Sage Publishing.

Scharmer, O. (2016).  Theory U.  Barrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. Oakland.

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Step 5:  Meaningful Engagement of Families and Community

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Step 5:  Meaningful Engagement of Families and Community

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After working on retaining our staff and maximizing their leadership potential I will focus on an important issue:  communication.

I've found a common concern is the lack of communication from the school to the home.  First, I would address this by creating a weekly newsletter sent to the entire school community.  Aside from important dates and happenings, a weekly newsletter allows the community to hear my voice and become more familiar with my personal values.

In addition, I would look to task one professional in each building to maintain our social media accounts.

Understanding the preferred social media platform of constituents is a must.  I will send out a survey asking the community their preferred social media app: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.  I will look for the correlation between age and preferred platform and tailor my communications accordingly.

Lastly, Parent-Teacher conferences will be reinstated in all schools.