Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Sunday, January 6, 2019
Thursday, June 7, 2018
Weehawken Schools Superintendent Earns 'Thought Leader' Honor
The Jersey Journal, 23-May-18
By Ron Zeitlinger
Weehawken schools superintendent Robert R. Zywicki has been named a "District Thought Leader" by Future Ready Schools (FRS), the first superintendent from New Jersey to earn the distinction.
The honor, which installs Zywicki as a member of the FRS Advisory Team, is conferred on educators who have demonstrated expertise and proven track record of implementing digital learning practices in their school districts.
"A recognition like this is indicative of the forward progress the Weehawken Township School District is making," Weehawken Board of Education President Richard Barsa said in a statement.
Zywicki is just one of 16 superintendents across the country to earn the recognition.
Future Ready Schools is a non-profit organization dedicated to maximizing student-centered learning opportunities and helping school districts leverage technology to prepare students for college and career.
As a member of the FRS Advisory Team, Zywicki said he "hopes to help promote the adoption of the Future Ready Framework in other districts, so they too can leverage technology to meet the needs of all learners."
The Weehawken school district has also been named an "Innovative District" by the International Center for Leadership in Education for the second year in a row, one of only 10 districts nationwide so named this year. The International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE) is an educational research center that studies the nation's most rapidly improving schools and districts.
In November 2017, Weehawken was one of only three districts in New Jersey to have all their schools certified as Future Ready by NJIT and the New Jersey School Board's Association.
In November 2017, Weehawken was one of only three districts in New Jersey to have all their schools certified as Future Ready by NJIT and the New Jersey School Board's Association.
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Who's running for school board in Weehawken?
Three incumbents battle for seats against two challengers
Hudson Reporter, 1-Apr-18
by Hannington Dia
The Weehawken Board of Education will hold its annual elections on April 17. Three incumbents are running to keep their three-year spots on the nine-person board. They are up against two challengers this year.
The incumbents include Board President Richard Barsa and board members Jennifer Bolcar and Meg Carson. Their challengers are Monika Sikand and Elizabeth Chan.
Mayor Richard Turner is supporting the three incumbents, he said. "They’ve done a fantastic job, the whole board.”
Richard Barsa
Board President Richard Barsa is running for his 10th term. A Weehawken High School graduate, as is his son, Barsa is running again because he wants to help the district continue its upward trends.
“Our kids have coding and computer science in every school,” Barsa said. “We have made tremendous progress.” Though he is happy with the district's technological advancements, Barsa also feels it could still do better in giving students skills to become contenders in the digital age.
“Our children need to master 'hard and soft skills' so that they can connect and compete in a dynamic global economy,” Barsa said. “The days of memorizing facts and 'doing school' to just pass a test are over.”
To that end, the district has introduced career academies where graduates work on a career-focused set of courses, he said.
Jennifer Bolcar
Jennifer Bolcar will be running for her first official term this year. She was appointed to a vacancy on the board last year. She has children in the Daniel Webster and Theodore Roosevelt schools.
“I am excited about the direction our schools are taking,” Bolcar said. “I want to be a part of the continued growth and transformation.”
Bolcar was also enthusiastic about the district's blended learning program and student strides. “Our AP participation is skyrocketing and our children are becoming more engaged,” she said. “I think it is important to keep this momentum going.”
Bolcar does see a few issues.
“Adjusting to the increased use of technology has been a learning curve for some of our students and parents,” she said. Today, “as a parent, reviewing your child's progress might mean sitting down at your laptop or smartphone now, as opposed to reviewing paper worksheets.”
But though some students and parents aren't entirely tech savvy yet, Bolcar believes their growing pains are necessary.
Meg Carson
Like Bolcar, Carson was also appointed to the board through a vacancy, so this will be her first time running. She has a son in the sixth grade and a daughter in third grade at the Roosevelt School.
She has been heavily involved with the PTA and helped run activities with students such as gardening. Carson is an educator at New York's Museum of Natural History and a science and music teacher at Kaplan Co-Operative Preschool in Hoboken.
“Most of my adult life has been spent working with children so it made sense for me to work with my local school board,” Carson said.
As her colleagues did, Carson lauded the schools' improvements, and just feels that there's more room for further improvements.
Monika Sikand
A Weehawken resident since 2005, Monika Sikand is confident in the district. “If the district had irreconcilable weaknesses I would not be sending my kids to Weehawken schools,” she said.
So why is Sikand running to replace one of the three incumbents? She, like them, wants to improve the schools by bringing her “strengths, skills, and our community’s voice” to the board. And while she applauds what the district has done, she has some ideas of how to build on that, if elected.
“Perhaps, we need to take a look at the guidelines for class size and current student–teacher ratio in the classrooms,” she said.
She also wants to see expanded summer internship opportunities and strengthened career and college guidance counseling for high school students.
Sikand also feels that the evaluation system for programs, events and teachers' professional development could be strengthened.
As Weehawken High School has seventh and eighth grade students, she would like to evaluate this setup to see if it is optimal for those students.
Sikand is an assistant professor at the City University of New York (CUNY), as well as an adjunct faculty at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken.
“My own experiences in education and service to my college in CUNY can help me better understand the insider challenges in administration and make improvements utilizing our strengths,” she said.
A mother to a Pre-K student and second grade kids in the district, Sikand also volunteers much of her time to after school activities at Daniel Webster School.
She is a native of India and immigrated to this country in 2005, the same year she moved to Weehawken.
Elizabeth Chan
Local designer Elizabeth Chan—the second challenger to the incumbents—would like to see better communication between students, teachers, and parents.
Chan, who has one daughter at Daniel Webster, and another seven-month old daughter, said she would push for a student mentorship program if elected.
“Some of these kids don't know what they want to do with their lives moving forward,” she said. Chan would also be interested in a food education program to bring awareness about healthy eating. “I'm a big advocate for healthy, clean living,” she said. “It would be great to see about making our own food.” The high school is working to place a greenhouse atop its roof, which helps, she said.
Weehawken schools today
The district has three schools. Daniel Webster serves pre-K to second grade; the Theodore Roosevelt School serves grades 3-6; and Weehawken High School serves grades 7-12. It is also working to acquire the Woodrow Wilson School, which was recently returned to Weehawken after a 19-year shared services agreement with Union City.
Since 2016, the Weehawken School District has become a 1:1 district, meaning every student has access to a Google Chromebook and blended learning programs, mixing traditional teaching with educational apps.
With this in place, Future Ready Schools-New Jersey designated the district as “future ready” last October.
Last year, the district was also named an “Innovative District” by the International Center for Leadership in Education.
That same year, data site Niche ranked Weehawken schools the best in Hudson County, 79th in the state, and in the top 14 percent nationally.
The improvements have shown in student performances. In 2017, the district achieved a 98 percent graduation rate, a 15 percent increase since 2015, according to Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Zywicki.
The district's achievements were accomplished on a tight school budget-$26.5 million for the 2016-17 school year. The total budget is $28 million for the 2017-18 year.
Sunday, December 31, 2017
"No homework" Movement in NJ
NJ.com, 8-Oct-17
By Amy Kuperinsky
If you're a parent of a child in grade school, you're likely familiar with the ordeal: You wrestle your child into a chair to finish his or her homework -- a bevy of assignments that are sometimes frustrating and occasionally incomprehensible. After an hour (or two, or three) of negotiation, occasional tears and shouting, everyone is exhausted.
And you're left wondering: Is all this homework really necessary?
For an increasing number of educators in New Jersey and nationwide, the answer is no. In recent years, Woodbridge Township, Princeton and West Windsor-Plainsboro school districts have experimented by either doing away with traditional homework or opting for "homework-free" days or weekends. The "no homework" movement is proving especially popular with parents (and -- perhaps not surprisingly -- young students), who see it as an opportunity for children to spend more time with family or pursue their own passions.
Experts say the movement is growing, even as conventional thinking still holds that homework is a good way for young students to establish an academic routine, and concerns remain about the ability of American children to compete globally.
Of course, who wouldn't like more recess and less homework?
Though no local studies have tracked the trend, New Jersey public schools have placed restrictions on homework since at least 2013, when students and parents reacted favorably to limits on homework in the Hopewell Valley School District. The district later extended the policy, setting specific time restrictions, like one that disallowed third graders from doing more than 30 minutes of assignments.
In 2015, Princeton schools began periodically implementing homework-free weekends, following the lead of West Windsor-Plainsboro schools (which began offering some homework-free nights in 2014). And last year, Robert Mascenik School #26 in Woodbridge Township deemphasized traditional homework in favor of reading. Administrators said children should spend the time playing and interacting with their families. So did Port Reading School #9, another elementary school in the same district.
In 2016, the no-homework movement went viral when Brandy Young, a second-grade teacher in Godley, Texas, sent a note to parents letting them know she wouldn't be giving any homework. Young explained that research didn't bear out the benefit of homework for young students, saying it was more important for them to play and get to bed early.
Parents are celebrating no-homework policies as a kind of forward-thinking approach to early education. Consider Jennifer Rittner, who felt that her son Theo's kindergarten homework was so unnecessary and detrimental that she was willing to put him in private school.
"I can't draw, I can't do math, I can't read," he would say. Rittner, who lives in Montclair, placed part of the blame on the "depressing" worksheets that followed Theo home after school. When first grade rolled around, he left for a private school -- the Montclair Cooperative School.
There, students kept nightly journals where they could log whatever they wanted to read. Later, they were assigned "ownwork," for which they performed and logged a weekly "self-initiated task." For Theo, now 7, that could mean playing darts or making a paper airplane.
"The work that we do with children needs to be productive, not just kill time," says Amanda Marchesani, Theo's former teacher at the school. She reconsidered her approach to homework after hearing Alfie Kohn, a scholar of progressive education known for his views on reward-based learning (no gold stars, please) and grading (it shouldn't exist), speak at a conference.
Does that mean teachers who see homework as indispensable -- even at a young age -- are wrong?
In 2006, Harris Cooper, a psychology professor at Duke University, published an analysis of research conducted between 1987 and 2003, finding that even a little bit of homework could have a positive influence. But the association held strongest in grades seven to 12; younger students did not demonstrate the same benefit.
Homework, he wrote, could trigger loss of interest in a subject or make students see school in a negative light. Despite this, he advised teachers to put stock in the "10-minute rule," the notion -- endorsed by the PTA and National Education Association -- that 10 minutes of homework should be added per grade level, starting with 10 in first grade and topping out at two hours in 12th.
So are worksheets like the ones assigned to Theo in kindergarten really going to help students get into Harvard one day? Rittner thinks the push to start so young is reflective of parental neurosis.
"I think it's generalized social anxiety that children in our country are falling behind children in other countries," says Rittner, who teaches social justice and design for graduate students at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Still, many educators believe that young children should do homework to foster a love of learning, says Kedra Gamble.
"Homework when done well is a wonderful place to do that," says Gamble, assistant professor at Rutgers University Graduate School of Education in New Brunswick.
She adds, "The function of school is very different than it was 20, 30 years ago. You can get content from everywhere. Now we're teaching them to think, to posit questions, to conduct research, to solve problems."
Steven Isaacs teaches a game design class at William Annin Middle School in Basking Ridge where he asks students to design their own games in the context of Minecraft, covering topics such as narrative and coding. A former special education teacher, he was never a fan of homework. Why? It changes the focus of school, he says.
"It's not about the learning, it's about the finishing the homework, and that really bothers me," Isaacs says. He frames his class as a "studio" where students pick passion projects.
"When a kid has agency and is excited about something, there's a good chance when they come home they're going to continue working on that," Isaacs says.
But in the face of school benchmarks, creative freedom isn't always a possibility. Not all districts have the resources of the Bernards Township School District, and priorities can be different in a disadvantaged school.
Moreover, in high school, hours of homework remain a necessary part of life as students move towards college. For those hoping to get into a top school, this can mean a fiercely competitive admissions process. If relieved of homework in subjects like math, history and English, would students become less desirable candidates for the academic rigor that awaits?
Well, no. But yes, too. Ashley Kollme is a college counselor for IvyWise, a New York college planning company that ministers to New Jersey students whose parents plunk down thousands of dollars for tutoring and advising -- in effect, giving them more homework.
Following a full slate of extracurriculars that creeps into early evening, students come home to so much work that they end up sacrificing sleep, she says.
"Something has to give," Kollme says. "There are only 24 hours in a day." An oppressive amount of homework doesn't necessarily mean better college preparedness, she says.
"Colleges are not focused so much on just the numbers -- what are your test scores and what are your grades," Kollme says.
The broader question: "Do you have a love of learning?"
Monday, October 9, 2017
Wilson School Returns to Weehawken
Woodrow Wilson to reopen for classes, rec activities after renovations
Hudson Reporter, 1-Oct-17
By Hannington Dia
Weehawken's Woodrow Wilson School officially returned to the township's possession, ending a 19-year shared services agreement with Union City to house the latter town’s gifted students in the campus.
Wilson – which is currently closed -- will undergo renovations over the next 12 to 18 months, according to Weehawken Mayor Richard Turner. During the work, it will serve as a community center for the town, hosting small recreational events and community play groups. When it’s fully renovated, it will probably be a public school building and still maintain community recreation uses, Turner said.
Hudson Theater Works, a performing arts group in town, is set to be the first community group to perform at the school later in October.
However, “The first thing is, it's going to remain as a school,” Turner said. “The school system will make a decision as how to utilize it. The superintendent will be making a recommendation to the school board about future use.”
Other schools in the district also open their campuses to the community for certain events.
Renovations
The renovations will include work to the school's bathrooms, repairing its exterior lamps, replacing the classroom and hallway doors, and installing security vestibules, according to Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Zywicki.
Eighteen months ago, the township finished canopy work on the school.
“I've toured the building a couple of times, and it needs some work,” Zywicki said. That work will also include installing interactive smart boards in the classrooms to bring Wilson up to speed with its sister schools.
“We want it to have the same consistency as our other buildings,” Zywicki said. “It needs to meet the same technology standards.”
Previously, Union City maintained the school, Turner said. “They did everything, they did repair work. But now it needs major work.”
Usage
The superintendent is assessing numerous factors to decide how it will be used as a school.
“We're going to look at our enrollment trends,” Zywicki said. “We're looking at our needs for early childhood and our needs for special education. Based on that study, I will make recommendations to the board.”
Zywicki said this will take at least six months. According to Turner, the super should make his recommendation by September of 2018 at the latest.
History
Woodrow Wilson originally opened in 1928, serving kindergarten through eighth grade. However, during a school reorganization around 1997, the town realized it didn't have enough students to fill the campus. Officials closed down the school soon after.
“The school didn't really have many children to start with,” Turner said. “Our student population was much lower at the time. So we reorganized, and we made Webster School a [Pre-K] through second grade school, Roosevelt School third through sixth grade, and moved the seventh and eighth grades into the high school. So we didn't need Wilson School.”
But Weehawken is luring families back to town, and the population of public school students is growing. “Families are buying homes because it’s a great town, it’s a clean town, and we have a great school system,” Turner said.
Union City's needs
However, Union City, which was renovating its Gilmore School on Kerrigan Avenue, needed more space for its students. “Union City is an Abbott District,” Turner said. “They were renovating a lot of their schools, and building new schools. They needed a place to put their gifted and talented kids.”
After Wilson's initial closure, “we were exploring what to do with it,” Turner said. “Some people wanted to sell it, some people wanted to make condos, some people wanted to keep it as a school. While we were having that debate, Union City came forward and said, 'Gee, we would like to rent it.'”
Though the lease agreement was originally for five years, Union City kept on renewing through the years, paying Weehawken $1 million annually in rent.
Of the Wilson building, Turner said, “It's a beautiful building. We're not going to open it up for big events, because the parking is so tight in the neighborhood. No concerts or anything like that.”
He added that the Weehawken Free Public Library, which is located near the school, could host some events in the school's auditorium.
The Hudson Theater Works will be performing Shakespeare's MacBeth at the school from Oct. 12 through the 28. Visit http://www.hudsontheatreworks.com/ for more information.
Saturday, March 11, 2017
Weehawken Holds Day Drug and Alcohol Free Poster Contest
Weehawken Holds Day Drug and Alcohol Free Poster Contest
Hudson Reporter, 5-Mar-17
By Do the right thing
The winners of the township’s Drug and Alcohol-Free poster contest were awarded their prizes at the Jan. 25 Township Council meeting, when they got up in front of the gathering and described their posters.
At the Weehawken Day Festival last fall, Mayor Richard Turner and the Township Council announced the contest, hoping to encourage students to make the correct decisions about drugs and alcohol.
The contest was opened to fourth grade students at Roosevelt School. Entries were judged on the artist’s ability to create a submission conveying a positive message about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse.
By providing students with a drug and alcohol-free theme to illustrate, they hoped to not only get students involved, but also to get the children to share their thoughts about the benefits of an alcohol and drug-free life through drawings and messages.
Twenty-seven students submitted entries and the posters were displayed and voted on at the Weehawken Day Festival. Residents were asked to vote for the top three posters that they felt best expressed the challenges young people face today.
The winning posters are:
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First place - Connor McGinley – 110 votes Title: Why Are Dragons Extinct? They Smoked! |
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Second place - Alexandra Flores – 98 votes Title: Don’t be a Drinker, Be a Thinker! |
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Third place - Aayush Sherchan - 87 votes Title: Don’t Let Drugs Walk Over You |
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Weehawken Residents See "It’s A Wonderful Life" Performed by WHS Student
Weehawken Reporter, 22-Jan-17
High school students perform classic Christmas play
Weehawken Township High School presented the stage version of the classic Frank Capra film “It’s a Wonderful Life” on Dec. 16 and 17 at the high school.
Released in 1946, the story is a Christmas fantasy based on the short story “The Greatest Gift,” which Philip Van Doren Stern wrote in 1939 and published in 1943.
The protagonist, a good-hearted banker named George Bailey, has given up his life’s dreams in order to help others. When an emergency loss of funds at his bank on Christmas Eve drives him to near-suicide and to wish he’d never been born, the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence, shows George all the lives he has touched for the better, and how different (and worse) life in his community of Bedford Falls would be had he never been born.
The film is among the most popular in American cinema and because of numerous television showings in the 1980s has become traditional viewing during the Christmas season.
Mayor Richard Turner and members of the Township Council were among those present for the local presentation. (Pictures by Angela and Robert de Zeeuw)
Thursday, January 26, 2017
Throwback Thursday - Weehawken's Schools Try To Integrate Electronically (NY Times, 28-Jan-1984)
NY Times, 28-Jan-1984
By Susan Chira
Weehawken school officials, faced with a state directive to desegregate and with parental opposition to busing, have proposed linking white and Hispanic students by computer and television while letting them stay in their own schools.
But Weehawken's unusual proposal has far from settled the issue. The state still insists that integration in Weehawken must be face to face.
Under the plan's first phase, dubbed ''Kidwitness News,'' children from all three elementary schools in the city have been meeting for two hours every Saturday morning since last fall to tape a mock news program in which they report on each other's cultures. So far, the shows have only been seen in special screenings. Discrediting Ethnic Stereotypes
The second phase calls for setting up computer laboratories in each of the three schools before the end of the school year, so children would be able to write each other messages and share lessons using the computer.
The third phase would allow students to see and talk to one another during this process by installing video equipment in each school. Weehawken officials insist that the proposal is not a ruse to keep students of different cultures separate, but an attempt to solve the underlying problems of ethnic stereotypes that may divide its schoolchildren.
"Busing is not the answer," said Richard E. Onoverole, Weehawken's Superintendent of Schools and the creator of the integration plan. ''This is a plan to bring about positive changes in attitude, if negative ones do exist.''
"The state,'' he added, ''should look forward to the electronic age and the space age we're entering, and this certainly is on the threshold of that age.''
Large numbers of families from Cuba, the Dominican Republic and other Spanish-speaking countries began moving into Weehawken in the late 1960's. Weehawken, a community of 13,000 people and 1.7 square miles at the New Jersey end of the Lincoln Tunnel, found that the state considered two of its three elementary schools to have unbalanced enrollments - either largely Hispanic or largely white. There are only a few black students in the city's schools.
Nida E. Thomas, director of the State Office of Equal Educational Opportunity, who rejected the electronic integration plan last month, has asked the school system to come up with an alternative. The school system, however, has voted to resubmit the old plan to the state.
''Right now, they are really doing an activity, but they have not permanently reassigned kids,'' said Mrs. Thomas. A complete integration plan, she said, would include curricular reform, staff integration and training, community involvement and pupil reassignment. 'They're Going by Rote'
''The state is being robotic about this,'' said Justin Camerlengo, a member of the Weekhawken Board of Education. ''They have rules and they're going by rote. What we're asking for is a little bit of understanding. This is a small town with a small-town ethic. There has never been any kind of friction between Hispanics and others here.''
Weehawken is one of nine New Jersey school districts the state classifies as having ''not completely implemented a successful desegregation plan,'' Mrs. Thomas said. The others are Linden, Trenton, Hillside, Pennsauken, Camden, Elizabeth, Jersey City and Paterson.
In Weehawken's case, Mrs. Thomas said, desegregation is necessary because of an ethnic imbalance at two schools. At the Roosevelt school, 77 percent of the enrollment is Hispanic and 21 percent white. At the Webster school, 58 percent of the students are white and 39 percent Hispanic.
At the third school, Wilson, which the state considers balanced, 55 percent of the students are Hispanic and 43 percent white. Standardized tests given to students at each school indicate that most students' basic skills are far above those required for their grade levels, but the tests do indicate some differences between schools.
Tests administered to sixth- graders at all three schools last April showed that Roosevelt students averaged eighth-grade skills, Wilson students averaged ninth-grade skills, and Webster students averaged nearly tenth-grade skills, said Gloria Hurley, Weehawken's director of guidance. A Report on Castro
Weehawken officials say that ''Kidwitness News'' brings students together more effectively than if they were sitting side by side in a classroom.
Recent shows have included reports on Italian and Spanish Christmas dinners. A recent report was on the 25th anniversary of Fidel Castro's rise to power in Cuba.
''Quiet on the set!'' shouted Ricky Enriquez, the show's current producer and a seventh-grade student at the Roosevelt School.
Students from the Roosevelt, Wilson and Webster Schools fell silent as the cameraman focused his lens and the assistant producer signaled the reporter to begin.
Kim Stewart, a seventh-grader at the Webster School, launched into her introduction of an interview with the mother of a Wilson School student who left Cuba in 1966: ''Recently, Fidel CAY-stro . . .''
''Cut!'' shouted Ricky.
''Did I say it wrong?'' Kim asked. On the second take, she pronounced it ''Cah-stro.'' Many Students Participate
For two hours, the children from different schools conferred on camera angles, practiced taping one another and rehearsed their spots on camera.
Their supervisors - Jon Hammer of the Wilson School and Mr. Camerlengo of the Board of Education - told them to look straight into the camera and keep going, even if they fluffed a minor line.
Working on the Saturday program is voluntary, but Mr. Onoverole said the youngsters were so enthusiastic about the project that he expected more than 1,000 of Weehawken's 1,200 elementary-school students to participate. The students work on their projects at their own schools during the week. The Saturday tapings require them to work together to finish the job, Mr. Hammer said.
''We got to meet people in the Heights,'' said Sylvia Buria, a seventh-grader at the Roosevelt School. She sees the Heights neighborhood, she said, as ''uptown Weehawken, the rich and cultured.'' 'Everybody Is the Same'
''They're just the same,'' said Frederick Durand, another seventh- grader at Roosevelt.
The view from uptown did not differ much. ''Everybody is the same, whether Spanish, Irish, Italian - I don't see why we have to go to a different school because we have a different nationality,'' said Lori Majewski, a seventh-grader at the Webster school.
Most of the students interviewed, like their parents, hated the idea of busing. ''This is a small town - you get to know everybody anyway,'' Paul Sangillo said. ''Why do I have to be bused?'' 'Few Americans in Class'
Other students praised the program but said they did feel there was a difference between the schools.
''I'm Spanish, so is most of the school - there are only a few Americans in class,'' said Irami Fernandez of Roosevelt, using the children's term for those who are not Hispanic. ''If we can get more in class, maybe it would be better.''
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Friday, November 27, 2015
Weehawken appoints new schools superintendent
Hudson Reporter, 25-Nov-2015
Dr. Robert R. Zywicki was unanimously appointed at the Nov. 24 meeting of the Board of Education as Weehawken Township’s new superintendent of schools. He will be responsible for the operations of the PreK12 school district.
Dr. Zywicki currently serves as the assistant superintendent of the High Point Regional School District in Sussex, and previously served as High Point’s Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Technology.
He began his career as a middle school social studies teacher in the Bayonne Public Schools. He taught history and coached lacrosse at Voorhees High School in Northern Hunterdon County. Dr. Zywicki gained recognition as an AP Microeconomics and AP Macroeconomics teacher at Montgomery High School in Skillman.
While an AP Economics teacher at Montgomery, he was selected to serve as an AP Reader for The College Board, contributed to the Council for Economic Education’s AP Macroeconomics Teacher's Manual, and developed assessments for Paul Krugman’s Economics for AP.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Rutgers College of Rutgers University and a Master of Arts and Doctor of Education degrees from Saint Peter’s University.
Currently, he serves on the Governor's Standards Review English Language Arts Committee that is tailoring the Common Core State Standards to meet the needs of New Jersey’s students.
Dr. Zywicki is an adjunct at Saint Peter’s University and has taught at Rutgers University’s Center for Effective School Practices. He is a frequent presenter for the Foundation for Educational Administration on project based and blended learning and a consultant to several districts to train educators on how to increase blended learning via Google Apps for Education.
He and his wife, Melanie, have four children. Dr. Zywicki will start his new position in Weehawken when released from his current school district.
Dr. Zywicki regularly leverages social media to engage students, parents and community stakeholders. He can be followed on Twitter at @ZywickiR.
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Monday, May 18, 2015
Weehawken Board of Education Discussing "2015-2020 District Goals" on May 19th Meeting
On May 19th Meeting Weehawken Board of Education is discussing 2015-2020 District Goals.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
The Weehawken Board of Education - Update on Search for Superintendent
| Weehawken Parents - We would like your opinion.
Please let us know your views on the Discussion Board. |
Message from the Weehawken Board of Education
The Weehawken Board of Education would like to update our district on the groundwork we’re laying for its search for superintendent.
The board has determined that to optimize our search for a superintendent, we must first set clear goals for a strategic education plan for our district. We will then use that plan as a basis for interviewing and selecting the best candidate for superintendent. Toward that end, the board, along with Interim Superintendent Dr. John Fitzsimons, has prepared a set of multi-year goals with a projected maximum of five-years, predicated on feedback from all the critical stakeholders in the community.
Now that we have received feedback from the parents, Dr. Fitzsimons will finalize his draft of multi-year goals to present to the board at its April meeting, with the board making its own additional recommendations and revisions. These goals will serve to anchor the school system and provide a direction for the district over the next five years. After those goals are incorporated into a job description, we will then begin our search of candidate for superintendent, with the aid of a search professional, to lead us in our chosen direction.
Input for our multi-year district goals has been obtained from administrators, board-members, and teachers, both via survey and face-to-face meetings. Input has also been sought from parents using both an online survey and handouts, followed by a face-to-face between Interim Supt. Dr. Fitzsimons and parent-teacher organizations of all three schools for additional feedback. Both Dr. Fitzsimons and the board are synthesizing this information, which includes our district's academic, financial and capital improvement goals, and analysing it in the light of our actual financial resources.
The board’s search committee will then use our finalized set of multi-year goals to interview applicants, obtained with the aid of a search professional, for school superintendent. We require a superintendent who has the experience, enthusiasm and know-how to implement those goals, as well as the leadership ability to galvanize the stakeholders behind him or her.
Searching for our next superintendent is something we will do step-by-step, using the best judgment of board members, administrators, while keeping in mind the views and values of our teachers and parents. Thank you for your input thus far, and we will continue to keep you apprised.
The Weehawken Board of Education |
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Weehawken Students Win $1,000 and Give to Special Olympics NJ
NJ.com, 16-Apr-15
By Laura Herzog
Weehawken High School's basic technology teacher Laura Sciortino has been volunteering for the Special Olympics since she was a teenager, "all the way back in '89," she said.
So, to her, it was especially heartwarming to see her students receiving a $1,000 check on Wednesday from a Cablevision charity program - only to present it to a board member from the Special Olympics of New Jersey.
The students were all in the Weehawken High School Peer Leadership club that Sciortino has advised for 13 years.
The Special Olympics is "just something that I always felt close to. It was part of my church," she said. "There's this unity there."
The money comes through Cablevision's Optimum Community initiative Charity Champions, which "promotes volunteerism and encourages high schools to raise funds for a charity of their choice," according to a press release.
This is the second year that the students have won money from Cablevison's now six-year-old program, formerly called "Power to Learn," the release stated. Selected schools receive $500 "in seed money" to put towards future fundraising efforts, in addition to a $1,000 donation to their charity of choice.
Based on their annual fundraising efforts, which are submitted to Cablevision in April, a school will be chosen for a grand prize winner in each of the six tri-state regions to receive an additional $5,000 for their charity, according to Cablevision.
Besides independently raising $800 this year for the Special Olympics prior to receiving this check, Weehawken students in the peer leaders club are learning about learning about cooperation and teamwork, Sciortino said.
Making "a difference in the community makes them busy, so that they're not going to be involved with drugs and alcohol," Sciortino said.
Monday, December 15, 2014
Weehawken Girl Scouts Learn a Variety of Skills
Hudson Reporter, 12-Dec-14
Weehawken Girl Scout Troops 12933 and 12779 have been busy.
They recently traveled to Branch Brook Park Roller Rink in Newark to participate in a special Girl Scout program called Stemtastic. The girls participated in a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) lesson and had hands-on activities connected with roller skating. Then they had pizza and skated roller-derby style. The girls learned a lot and had a great time. Troop members who participated were Daisy Scouts Lexie, Audrey, Charlotte, Livyanna; Brownie Scout Kisa; Junior Scout Nina; Cadette Scouts Amelia, Gaby, and Yelienne; Senior Scout Ambar; Troop MentorAmanda Earle; and Troop Leaders Lynn Earle and Evita Fritze.
Also, the sixth to 10th grade members of Girl Scout Troop 12933 assisted the younger scouts of Troop 12779 in making Thanksgiving holiday treats. The girls made pilgrim hats from dipped marshmallows and cookies, teepees from ice cream cones, pretzels and chocolate, as well as turkeys from spice drops, and wagons from cookie wafers, candy, pretzels and icing. They can't wait to participate in the gingerbread house workshop this month.
They recently traveled to Branch Brook Park Roller Rink in Newark to participate in a special Girl Scout program called Stemtastic. The girls participated in a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) lesson and had hands-on activities connected with roller skating. Then they had pizza and skated roller-derby style. The girls learned a lot and had a great time. Troop members who participated were Daisy Scouts Lexie, Audrey, Charlotte, Livyanna; Brownie Scout Kisa; Junior Scout Nina; Cadette Scouts Amelia, Gaby, and Yelienne; Senior Scout Ambar; Troop MentorAmanda Earle; and Troop Leaders Lynn Earle and Evita Fritze.
Also, the sixth to 10th grade members of Girl Scout Troop 12933 assisted the younger scouts of Troop 12779 in making Thanksgiving holiday treats. The girls made pilgrim hats from dipped marshmallows and cookies, teepees from ice cream cones, pretzels and chocolate, as well as turkeys from spice drops, and wagons from cookie wafers, candy, pretzels and icing. They can't wait to participate in the gingerbread house workshop this month.
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Weehawken's Girl Scouts Selected to Participate in Macy's Design Studio Tour on Press Day
Weehawken's Girl Scouts Selected to Participate in Macy's Design Studio Tour on Press Day
Weehawken's Brownie Scouts in 2nd & 3rd Grade, Junior Scouts in 4th & 5th Grade of Troop 12779, and Cadette Scouts in 6th-8th Grade of Troop 12933 were selected to participate in Macy's Design Studio Tour on Press Day where this year's new floats were presented. The Scouts learned how a float develops from concept to an elaborate completed project right in the Studio in Moonachie. The girls had a great time and are looking forward to seeing the floats in the Thanksgiving Day Parade!
Weehawken's Brownie Scouts in 2nd & 3rd Grade, Junior Scouts in 4th & 5th Grade of Troop 12779, and Cadette Scouts in 6th-8th Grade of Troop 12933 were selected to participate in Macy's Design Studio Tour on Press Day where this year's new floats were presented. The Scouts learned how a float develops from concept to an elaborate completed project right in the Studio in Moonachie. The girls had a great time and are looking forward to seeing the floats in the Thanksgiving Day Parade!
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Weehawken Board of Education Budget Hearing on Wednesday (26-Mar-14) @7:00PM
A special meeting of the Board of Education will take place this Wednesday, 2 April 2014, at 7:00PM in the board office at Weehawken High School, 53 Liberty Place, to discuss the 2014-15 school budget
The public is invited to attend.
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