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.

Andrea Mangione: Brandt School

Andrea Mangione knew from the third grade that she wanted to be a teacher, when her teacher told her that she was a natural leader.

From that time on, her passion for teaching began to grow. Mangione received her B.A. in communications from Fairfield University while interning for a media company in New York City. She continued her education at the graduate level at Georgian Court University, where she obtained her teaching certifications and also had a student teaching experience with students in the third grade.

While Mangione would have been happy to remain at the third grade level, she accepted an unexpected position as an early childhood educator in a Head Start classroom in Freehold. Since that time she has also worked in an early intervention preschool for children with disabilities, held the title of director of a day care/preschool, and worked for the Hopes Head Start program in Hoboken. Mangione also taught in New Zealand, volunteering her time in a school where she served as a one-on-one aide as well as a kindergarten classroom assistant.

Mangione has been teaching in the Hoboken Public Schools preschool program since 2013, when the district began to operate as a preschool provider alongside our contracted providers. She is proud to say that she has been a part of the HPS program from its beginning and hopes to remain a part of it for many years to come.

Mangione has a passion for helping young children in their early stages of development and she believes that this passion, along with creativity and patience, has helped form her into the successful teacher that she is today. She also knows that the formation of young children is not a solitary endeavor and she is certainly grateful for all the helpful and supportive leaders she has been able to work with, as well as her collaborative colleagues in the entire early childhood staff.

Mangione currently lives in Hoboken only blocks away from Brandt. She is happy to be a member of the local community and often sees her students with their families outside of the classroom around the town. She considers it a privilege to play such an important and instrumental role in her students’ lives and is always happy to see them in and out of the classroom. Mangione is a member of the School Climate Committee, the School Safety Committee, the School Improvement Committee, as well as serving as a teacher representative for the PTO.

She was also named Brandt School’s Teacher of the Year.