2022_09_New_Jersey_Monthly
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Our STATE of EDUCATION<br />
“<br />
signs with positive messages such as, “You<br />
are strong,” “You are beautiful,” and “You can<br />
do it.” On other occasions, students will leave<br />
anonymous “kindness notes,” complimenting<br />
or encouraging a classmate.<br />
“You can make someone’s day just by saying<br />
hello to someone,” says Joseph Fleres,<br />
the assistant superintendent.<br />
The district also enhanced its social-emotional<br />
learning agenda by adding the Wingman<br />
program, which trains students to be leaders<br />
in creating an empathetic and inclusive environment.<br />
The program was created by another<br />
Sandy Hook parent, Ian Hockley, whose<br />
6-year-old son died in the massacre. Hockley<br />
says he liked the concept of the wingman, a<br />
term in the Air Force for someone who has<br />
another’s back.<br />
Gina Rosamilla, the principal of the<br />
Watsessing Elementary School in Bloomfield,<br />
says that at-home learning during<br />
the pandemic was particularly trying for<br />
her students. “Our socioeconomic status<br />
is lower,” Rosamilla says. “Some kids were<br />
sitting at the kitchen table [doing schoolwork],<br />
and they had to take care of their<br />
younger siblings. Some lost family members<br />
[to Covid-19], and they were trying to learn<br />
as they were dealing with loss. They were trying to learn as their<br />
relatives worried about keeping their jobs.”<br />
With Covid surges and outbreaks not yet things of the past,<br />
Bloomfield schools, like others across the state, are prepared<br />
to continue mental wellness remotely, they say. Earlier in the<br />
pandemic, Mike Bruno, the district supervisor of guidance,<br />
WE WILL be<br />
talking to<br />
students about<br />
setting Internet<br />
boundaries<br />
and using screen<br />
time in a way that<br />
promotes<br />
good social and<br />
emotional<br />
well-being.<br />
Tabitha Rice<br />
Media Specialist, Bloomfield Midle School<br />
pushed for programs like Wingman to continue<br />
even as schools were forced to shift to<br />
remote learning. If ever the kids needed an<br />
emotional boost, he told district officials,<br />
it was then.<br />
“We had student leaders join students<br />
in lower grade levels for sharing circles on<br />
Google Meet to have a true sense of inclusivity,”<br />
says Laura Foster, a teacher at Watsessing<br />
and a Wingman program coordinator.<br />
Wingman student leaders in the upper<br />
middle school grades work with younger<br />
”<br />
students on social and emotional learning,<br />
even succeeding in motivating some who<br />
are introverted to become Wingmen.<br />
The program is so popular that enrollment<br />
in the middle school for the coming<br />
school year has nearly doubled to more than<br />
80 from 44.“It’s the most, by far, we’ve had<br />
sign up,” says Greg Murray, a computer science<br />
teacher involved with the Wingman<br />
program at Bloomfield Middle School.<br />
“There was one student who didn’t want<br />
to participate,” says Wingman and ninthgrader<br />
Sophia Sorge. “She didn’t want to<br />
speak to anyone she didn’t know. So any<br />
time we went to her classroom, we’d pair<br />
her with a Wingman so she could share her<br />
ideas on the activities we were doing. Each time, she got a bit<br />
more comfortable.”<br />
One boy was often teased because of speech issues, Foster says.<br />
He was usually alone on the playground while other kids socialized<br />
with friends. A teacher encouraged him to be a Wingman leader.<br />
“He really took on the role,” Foster says. “It shifted the dynamic<br />
PHOTOGRAPHS BY BENJAMIN NORMAN<br />
TAKING<br />
THE LEAD<br />
In Bloomfield,<br />
the Wingman<br />
program participants<br />
help peers<br />
develop empathy<br />
and inclusivity.<br />
Left: Wingman<br />
students with Michael<br />
Bruno, district<br />
supervisor of<br />
guidance (in the<br />
rear). Right: Staff<br />
member Gregory<br />
Murray, left,<br />
works with two<br />
students.<br />
60 SEPTEMBER <strong>2022</strong> NJMONTHLY.COM