2022_09_New_Jersey_Monthly
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PHOTOGRAPH: COURTESY OF STEVEN VAN ZANDT/KIRSTI HOVDE<br />
QWhat are some of the biggest chal-<br />
you face as commissioner?<br />
alenges<br />
I’m focusing on continuing to have<br />
students and educators in safe<br />
buildings. We’re also ensuring the physical,<br />
social and emotional well-being of our<br />
students to promote optimal learning.<br />
We’ve been thrown into a virtual teaching<br />
reality without a lot of warning, so<br />
we need to learn how to take the best of<br />
technology and reacclimate ourselves to<br />
brick-and-mortar learning. And we’re not<br />
just capturing what was missed; we’re<br />
focusing on learning acceleration, and on<br />
big ideas. We’re moving students forward,<br />
using technology and training to make<br />
connections meaningful for them and<br />
to sustain their learning. Universal preschool<br />
is one of the governor’s hallmark<br />
positions. We believe that education for<br />
every 3- and 4-year-old in the state will<br />
pay dividends for years to come.<br />
QCan you talk about learning loss for<br />
students during the pandemic and<br />
what is being done on the state level to<br />
aalleviate this? Is there a long-term plan?<br />
We term it disrupted learning.<br />
We’re engaging students differently<br />
now. We’ve been able to use funds from<br />
the federal government to support initiatives<br />
to help with this, and 90 percent<br />
of these funds have been allocated to be<br />
shared with our school districts.<br />
Our goal was initially to get devices into<br />
the hands of children, but now we’re looking<br />
beyond that. What is the research telling us?<br />
We’re dividing funding and leveraging more<br />
toward STEM, and we’re taking a portion<br />
for literacy and visual and performing arts.<br />
We know that creative performance leads<br />
to growth. We’re also directing $30 million<br />
for mental health support.<br />
The funding also allows for one-on-one<br />
intensive tutoring, after-school programs<br />
and summer learning.... It will take time<br />
for districts to find their footing again<br />
now that they’re back in their buildings.<br />
QWhat is being done to address the<br />
mental health issues that students<br />
ahave faced in the past two years?<br />
We’re improving our ability to provide<br />
support to schools. If there’s<br />
a need, we want them to come to us for<br />
resources. We have a new mental health<br />
staff member working with our districts.<br />
In our county offices, we have a county<br />
special education specialist as well. Our<br />
goal is to build on what we know works<br />
and to train and advance initiatives that<br />
are moving forward.<br />
QCan you talk about school construction<br />
and what’s being done in terms<br />
aof failing buildings around the state?<br />
We have many older buildings<br />
across our state. The Murphy administration<br />
wants to ensure that $75<br />
million earmarked in this budget will<br />
support this initiative. It’s monumental<br />
that we have the support in place. We’re<br />
encouraging the maintenance of buildings<br />
through inspections to ensure that<br />
buildings remain in optimal condition.<br />
QAre teacher shortages going to be a<br />
aproblem for schools going forward?<br />
We have long known about areas<br />
where school districts have teacher<br />
shortages, such as the sciences, mainly<br />
physics, as well as in bilingual education<br />
and special education. The pandemic has<br />
amplified this problem. We’re continuing<br />
to support districts in two ways: by implementing<br />
the hiring of highly experienced<br />
retired teachers, and with a five-year pilot<br />
program which allows people who want<br />
to become teachers to do so by meeting a<br />
minimum GPA score on their assessment.<br />
If you are able to meet the benchmark, a<br />
district will hire you without first having<br />
to obtain certification.<br />
QWhat are some of your goals for the<br />
anew academic year?<br />
To maintain a safe learning environment.<br />
The safe opening of<br />
schools is paramount. And to have as<br />
much normalcy and continuity as possible.<br />
QWhat changes will families see in<br />
aeducation this school year?<br />
We’ll continue to ensure the social<br />
and emotional health of students<br />
and educators. We’ll be offering highquality<br />
preschool, starting at age three.<br />
And we want to prepare students for jobs<br />
in the future in STEM and computer science.<br />
We also want to enable students to<br />
stay in <strong>New</strong> <strong>Jersey</strong> and make their homes<br />
here. We want to ensure that every student<br />
can graduate high school with a plan<br />
and be enrolled, employed or enlisted. I<br />
hope we can make that a reality.<br />
ROCK N’ ROLL<br />
High School<br />
I<br />
F ANYONE KNOWS ABOUT THE<br />
life-altering power of the arts,<br />
it’s E Street Band guitarist Steven<br />
Van Zandt.<br />
When educators approached Van<br />
Zandt more than 15 years ago with news<br />
that arts programs in their schools<br />
were disappearing amid an increased<br />
emphasis on testing, Van Zandt wanted<br />
to help. Through his Rock and Soul<br />
Forever Foundation, Van Zandt worked<br />
with a team of ethnomusicologists and<br />
educators to develop an interdisciplinary<br />
music curriculum called TeachRock.<br />
“We need to teach our kids how to<br />
think, not what to think,” Van Zandt<br />
told <strong>New</strong> <strong>Jersey</strong> <strong>Monthly</strong> in an August<br />
2021 interview.<br />
Nearly 60,000 educators representing<br />
all 50 states are currently<br />
registered at teachrock.org for its<br />
free lesson plans and materials, which<br />
have been endorsed by the <strong>New</strong> <strong>Jersey</strong><br />
School Boards Association.<br />
<strong>New</strong> <strong>Jersey</strong> is home to TeachRock’s<br />
first district-wide partnership, with the<br />
four schools comprising the Hopatcong<br />
Borough Schools District. Launched in<br />
2020, the collaboration was a significant<br />
step for TeachRock—“something that<br />
we hold very dear to us,” says program<br />
officer Christine Nick.<br />
TeachRock lessons implemented<br />
in Hopatcong range from “Designing<br />
an Electric Guitar With Shapes” for<br />
elementary school students to “What Is<br />
Sampling?” for middle and high school<br />
students. One English teacher taught<br />
the latter lesson in the context of researching<br />
and citing sources when writing<br />
papers, spurring a discussion about<br />
plagiarism. “It was really interesting to<br />
hear students…conceptualize academic<br />
integrity through the lens of sampling,”<br />
says Nick, who observed the curriculum<br />
in action. —Jennifer Finn<br />
SEPTEMBER <strong>2022</strong> NEW JERSEY MONTHLY 67