Patch Series: Meet Your Local Educators in Hoboken

Editor Note: The following article is part of a series. More Hoboken Educators of the Year will be featured in future posts.

Hoboken Public Schools has named its teachers of the year and educational services professionals of the year.

This year, the New Jersey Department of Education has combined the Teacher of the Year program with Governor’s Teacher/Educational Services Professional Recognition Program. Schools selected one teacher and one educational services professional to be recognized at the school level. The teacher awardees can then nominate themselves for the County Teacher of the Year program.

The following biography information is provided by the Hoboken Public School District.

Celeste Joyce: Salvatore R. Calabro Elementary School

Celeste Joyce, school nurse at Calabro School, has had a long career as a registered professional nurse. She has worked at in-patient and community health settings, including post anesthesia room and emergency room.

Joyce has practiced in diverse settings as a project manager for a Health Care for the Homeless Program, as a home care/hospice nurse and as a nurse for HIV positive children living in a residential foster home and as a child health nurse within the NJ Division of Child Permanency and Placement (formerly DFYS), serving as a consultant and case manager for medically fragile children needing foster care placement. She has also served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army Nurse Corp Reserves.

A graduate of Christ Hospital School of Nursing in Jersey City, Joyce spent an early part of her career at a busy labor and delivery unit at Darnall Army Hospital in Fort Hood, Texas.

Joyce began her school nurse career at a Newark charter school and spent time in Hoboken and North Bergen before being assigned to Calabro School in 2008. She earned a bachelor’s degree in science from Excelsior College, and completed requirements for school nurse certification at New Jersey City University. She completed her master’s degree in nursing from Excelsior College with a concentration in clinical systems management.

Joyce is an active member of the Hudson County School Nurses Association and has served on the executive board for the last three years. She is also a member of the NJSNNA and National School Nurses Association. She presented at a poster session at NSNA’s annual conference in Washington DC, July 2011, Health and School Readiness; Identifying Students at Risk, the culmination of a graduate capstone project. Utilizing the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study, she developed an assessment tool for student exposure to toxic stress from birth to school entry.

Joyce enjoys working with the entire teaching staff at Calabro in supporting students’ education from the principal to the custodial, security and kitchen staff. She has been the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Pennies for Patients coordinator at Calabro for the past four years and is proud of how the students open their hearts and collect change for those affected.