and what you've been doing in your career ok so i came to princeton in two thousand so i've been here i think this is now my eighteenth school year so it seems like a long time but i came here from a previous school district as a special ed teacher  i taught you know english social studies math in spanish when i was a special ed teacher here in princeton i was in the classroom for about six years and then moved to a position at the time called supervisor of student activities and that was at the high school level and it was great i worked with student clubs i worked with a lot of community partners and it was really just sort of organizing the fun activity events hustle bustle after hours  building and from there in not two thousand and eight i moved into the supervisor of guidance position and i've been there ever since and so this new position is going to be an exciting one certainly  one that sort of shifts the work that i've been involved with but i thought it was a nice transition for myself for my professional growth and really it gave me an opportunity to stay in the district and in the building where i've spent almost all of my career in so that is exciting as well now the high school has several different assistant principals and so what exactly will your role be now that you're moving into that position how will your responsibilities change what  that's grades nine through twelve so across all four grade levels i'm so we will we can all work collaboratively with different student issues or concerns but the highlight of our job that we will work sort of individual with our students are issues around attendance issues with you know discipline if that comes up supports interventions sort of celebrating accomplishments and working closely with families and then together as it assistant principal team certainly since i am new into this role i will be taking notice of notes asking lots of questions working very closely with both mr warren and this is baxter to sort of get a good feel of what the the next sort of responsibilities and tasks are and so some of them will certainly be different than when i was in the guidance department you know safety and security worrying about drills and practicing for emergency events or facility maintenance where you know my previous role i didn't quite worry about those particular tasks but certainly that will be my responsibility now helping assist our instructional aids in our substitutes and our building monitors and so sort of a different perspective of managing staffing and helping helping them kind of maneuver through the school year teacher observations and of course supporting teachers  in their classroom sort of experiences whether that's instruction or behavior or you know in any capacity that i can so a little bit different i'm honored that i've had the experience in the guidance department because they feel that the perspective of understanding the social development of students in and sort of understanding of why our students are so passionate about their academics and and the goals that they have for themselves and for their futures  know that work in that sort of hands on knowledge will certainly help me work with my students and my families moving forward so i mean i'm really happy that i've had that exposure and that i understand you know what what are you know our high school students are really sort of faced against in the bigger picture are and out there and they're in the real world so definitely have a perspective of what's next you know i think sometimes we look at high school as sort of the four years but as the previous supervisor guidance you definitely always had that long term perspective of what happens to us after high school so that makes sense that you'll be able to bring that into your new role and really really keep that perspective it really helps to through that and i think that even in the you know the no and i'm ten years that i was in that role that's even changed so much you know the increase of use of technology right and sort of the expectations of what you know businesses and companies expect their graduates to sort of know the skill  that has changed and so i look forward to working with our colleagues to make sure that our students are prepared for those experiences and and celebrate along the way and i hope and that's the one thing i think i'm looking forward to is just really finding moments even simple little moments where i can celebrate with students they're achieving and their success and because not everybody is successful first time around so i am i want to take advantage of those opportunities but i think you just told my next what are you most excited for in your role but it sounds like you're really excited or helping those students and celebrating and helping sort of your resources for that but is there anything else that you're really looking for sure i mean i think for him first first and foremost i think it is about the student piece i think that you know my work in the guidance department was really sometimes adult centered and so the fact that all that you know how a group of students that will be sort of under my watch excites me because i want to get to know them better and sort of help them the four years of high school and to sort of be involved with their extracurricular activities you know their involvement with clubs and sports and to get myself out there and and sort of be there cheerleader behind the scenes and then to sort of identify in and help students who are not having the easiest time and what i can do with connecting community partners or supports that are available in our own our own backyard so those are really exciting and then i think that my my relationship with our our staff and colleagues and my dad my building will be a little bit different and really just sort of building on those relationships that we already had been supporting them in their teaching and learning in their classroom and and really just being again a support for them and maybe a sounding board or something or someone that can help them with resources to bring different things into their classroom to make it more relevant to the real world really just being sort of having that big perspective of like the students the teachers our parents and really just working so closely with all of them and the how others how those pieces all fit together to provide a better education for a student yes that's wonderful so tell me you have a varied background of education you said you were a special education teacher you have spanish you've done a lot of different things what first made you interested in getting an education so it's i have an interesting story when i was going to college i actually was not going to college for education i wanted to go to law school and work with with family law like that and that's what i just invision myself through growing up is to work with families and and children so i had an experience with an internship when i was in college and decided very quickly that i did not feel one hundred percent certain that that was the field that was going to make me the happiest ok and so very quickly and of course my parents were a little worried about this  changed my mind and i decided to quickly get my certification for for teaching and i pick special education because i felt that i gravitated toward students who perhaps needed a little bit more support or just a little bit little more attention and i i found myself in my experiences and in college working with students and volunteer in a lot and that was what excited me the most and so i quickly got a job at a private school and i was going through my master's program and then swung into the opportunity to come and work in princeton and so but my detour was probably the best best opportunity that i had to get into this field and when i think back i'm not so sure why i didn't automatically just get into that right at the serve college and then i think about some of the influences that helped me kind of drive in this direction i can remember specifically classroom teachers who influenced me tremendously i actually communicate with them to this day we get together once a year or so and it was just the teacher who just had such an impact on me and i said that's what happened if you want to grow up and and so i only hope that i could do that for students that i crossed paths with that that i motivate them to want to serve the youth when their life time so well you know it's an interesting story because so many of students today are students but across the nation i sort of feel like they think they have to have everything figured out they're going to go to college they're going to major in this major they're going to get the job they're going to have the career they're going to have success and that's real testament that you can show students i'm sure to say hey i thought i had it all i'd like you know we have a plan and we leave it and that's really a great skill first students to see modeled in people in our schools you know we have several teachers who are this is their second career you know they had previous careers i think it to do more and so you know although if you asked my parents to reflect upon this i know they would have been very nervous like oh my goodness she had graduating in a couple weeks and now she doesn't want to do this law school thing what are we going to do and so i just i kept assuring them that i have a plan just you know just me and i'm not sure if my parents thought you know at twenty one that they could trust me but it all worked out and i am very i'm very pleased with my decision and i just love this work i love want parents or students to know about the school your role the resources available so i would say you know maybe a little bit about me personally i mean i again i've been in the district for a while and i think that students who have interacted with me sort of know that i'm very approachable and i really want to help sometimes i don't have the answers and so we can figure out how to get the answers and so i would want my students and parents to know that they can just ask me questions ask for my help and and together we will do the best that we can do i also think that it's important to know that this is a journey and there are parts of this journey that are very bumpy and sometimes quite overwhelming and that i try to think about even in my own circumstances that if i can just focus that it's temporary and then there that i will learn along the way if you just kind of stick with it and work hard and i tried to like to have some humor in david day because a little life can be so serious sometimes and if you could just have a good laugh at it then you're in a good place for the day you know and that i think we just really together and the district in general just has such passion for students and we care so much about education and and there are such good people working in this district to to care for our students and to help them along the way and and i am honored to work in this district and to have the opportunity continue doing that so i do i look forward to the school year i look forward to reconnecting in a different way and learning myself and and just doing the best job i can do well we're so excited for you and  a middle school teacher in north philadelphia from there i moved on to allentown pennsylvania as a school teacher and instructional support teacher where i went in and helped with interventions in the classroom from there i was hired at west windsor eleven years nine as a fourth grade teacher and two as a teacher resource specialist for technology going around helping teachers infuse technology into their daily lessons then got my administrative certificate and moved on to most of the township elementary school i'm sorry township schools and i was an assistant principal at the primary school in the elementary school my week and my third year there i moved on to the middle school as an assistant principal in middle school classrooms in elementary schools in high schools you worked in technology how do all those pieces come together now why appreciate every single place that i've been i've learned so much about myself and about being an educator so i bring everything that i have learned into every single day i think the importance of helping the children achieve comes to the forefront every single day that i walk into the school i think back to the way i was taught and they used to be kind of rote you know read this answer these questions and when i got to the classroom i promised myself that i would not be that type of teacher that i would teach the way i wish i had been taught when i was no entry school so i made my lessons more interactive more fun  if my children my students weren't laughing then i knew they weren't learning so all of those past experiences helped me to see learn and see the different backgrounds of the students that i was teaching and to be able to address their needs on a  thing i looking to do first off is i need to just let the wonderful things happen and you just an amazing individual she didn't outstanding job while at little broke and so certainly i'm going in just to assess you know let's just see what happens how things go but one of the big visions that i have is in our character education program i know that we do a week of character and i've challenged my guidance counselor to move that to an entire year of character education where every month we will have a theme and we will have activities built in for the classroom teachers to use leading toward death theme as well as different assemblies and interactive bulletin boards and recognizing students who have responsibility ok you know responsibility certainly you know we all have our different tasks on a daily basis and it's arse up to our students to be responsible for themselves you know and on top of that to be respected for of who they are and those around th em for example one thing we did in my previous district my guidance counsellor we had letters spelling out the word respect ok and every class receive every grade level received a letter and they had to sign their names on the letter along with an example believe it begins as soon as our students walk through the door they have to learn about our differences and how to embrace our differences and move forward as far as having cultural background and building that racial literacy and diversity in the schools so to me i am all about bringing in global cultural ism as opposed to you know just ok what's around us i want to write i want them to know the world and be able to interact with that world and so we have such a we have such a global world right now with things just like skype you know you can call someone or anywhere in the world and connect with them so i think it really is a wonderful thing to be teaching our students how to how to interact and respect each other and respect the differences not downplay the differences absolutely and be proud of who they are absolutely no it's it's important that they have up most respect for themselves and that they're not afraid to be who they want to be yeah and that's the message i plan to get across to the entire school community as they move forward i he was a firm but fair and funny teacher he's the one who actually pushed me beyond the typical levels of an elementary school student and challenged my thinking and because he took such care in helping me that was the kind teacher i wanted to model myself with you know so he taught all three of us like i have two older brothers ok from every one of us and he was just an amazing individual variables there's a lot of people who think they know what should be happening in a classroom without ever having set foot on classroom so what you see motivated what keeps you passionate about this field it's the children you know i love to laugh i love to chat with with the students you know just ask them every day questions that they would never expect the principal to ask them or an educator to ask them taking care to know about them they will know their background what sports they play and i'm going to say you know i'm a washington redskins fan so i know that's going to draw whole lot to certainly you know getting to know them on a personal level yeah that's really what it's about for me and i have fun every day i walk into into work you want something to talk about as a district recently has really been about that social emotional learning and that idea that if we care about students as people as individuals first of course we're going to be more engaged in our classrooms you know because it's not just about math it's about how math relates their lives to who they are it's about caring about that person not just trying to check off the list so we have taught that kid back unless yeah absolutely and we're you know we're going to make sure that we touch upon social and emotional piece as well and it will be built into our character themes and i'm really looking to make sure that all of our students are well rounded and can appreciate just everything about where they are who they are and who they come across in their daily lives absolutely so as we head into the first school year for you what do you want families in little brick and the staff at little book to know about you and to know about this upcoming year ok first i love to laugh you know i mean i i have a sense of humor and i love to get out into the classrooms and work with the students and you know very just how you do speaking with the community and i certainly want their input in our big decisions and you know i'm only here second as a second parent to their kids and i prompt promising the community that i will love their child only second to them because that's my job and i want to make sure that my kids know that i see what drew you to look when when i saw the posting you know i just took a drive that was first you know because when i when i first was hired in west windsor you know i went there i took a drive same with my wife and i looked at the school and i actually said to my wife out loud i don't think i'll ever deserve to work in a place like this and it was it was very eye opening so in moving from one location to the next i have always held on to that and passing by little brook i was saying i just thought you know this looks like a very home type of school and it's very much community based you know i took a ride around the neighborhood you know and i said to my wife this time one way i think it would be great to work here so just to see in the school doing some background research we just had a meeting with the green team this morning and you know and that's a big push i really appreciate everything that they're doing and just enjoy the fact that we're kind of giving back and trying to stop some things that harm the earth as a little trying to do good so i mean all around everything that i saw everything i'm hearing right now has just been amazing absolutely  before we wrap up i just look back sort of at your childhood really quickly as an elementary school principal reading as really important turning so i'm curious do you have a favorite book from your childhood or when i really start out i do it's a book called gus was or i got it after them or a but the book was mine and i was able to read it cover to cover and i would read it so many times and i just took so much ownership in that book and what's really interesting is i one of my coworkers found the book for me when i was in west windsor purchased it for me and i still have it to this day so fun and it's such a it's such a great story you know about a ghost and that he entertains a family i mean you know the family doesn't believe in ghosts right you know and then he the family goes away and he's lonely so he meets this this mouse and they build the relationship and then when the family comes back you know that's my favorite book childhood was i love hope that even though a book was read years ago would still have such an emotional impact on our lives right now i think that's really wonderful absolutely you know and it's something that once you have that love of learning  never lose it exactly you know so that's that's part of our charge as well as to making sure our students love learning and that they will continue with that moving forward absolutely and make sure that they have that excitement and joy of learning that we talked about right well thank you so on another episode of this week an education