Get to Know Hopatcong's New H.S. Principal

Noreen Lazariuk will soon be a familiar name in Hopatcong when she takes the reins as high school principal in September. She said she plans to get to know as many people as possible during her first few days in Hopatcong. She spoke with Patch about her life, plans, and reasons for coming to the district.

Talk about your professional experience.

Lazariuk: I’d say 90 percent of my teaching and coaching experience is at the high school level. I spent majority of my teaching career in Mountain Lakes. I was a phys-ed teacher and a coach there. I then went to Montgomery Township schools, by Princeton. I was a vice principal there for three years [starting in 2008]. It was a large school with approximately 1,725 students. It’s a blue ribbon school district—the socioeconomic rating would be J-district, similar to Mountain Lakes. I was in charge of a department of 16 teachers and discipline for several grades. I also got a lot of experience in building operations, drills and handling emergencies.

From there, I went to Hoboken, which was very different than Mountain Lakes or Montgomery. I was the principal of Hoboken High School, which has a very diverse population of about 68 percent Hispanic, 20 percent black and a small percentage of Caucasian. I had grades eight through 12 and we had about 650 students. Hopatcong has about 700, so it’s similar in size.

I was Coach of the Year several times. I had coached a lot of different sports. I’m a decorated coach and I think that leadership experience and that success is what I would draw upon in relating to students and to coaching teachers. The faculty of the high school I look at as my team, and I think that there are a lot of parallels there.

You were a physical education teacher, which many people consider a dream job What made you decide to move into administration?

Lazariuk: I thought it was a natural progression for me. I looked at it as I just have a bigger team with a lot more responsibility. It can be that much more rewarding, and I still get to be part of working with all the teachers and coaches and all the students, seeing them in all different areas, like athletics and on the stage and in the arts. I get to do all of that now.

How would you describe your leadership style? 

Lazariuk: I’m very collaborative but I can be decisive, so I want to get as much council from the stakeholders as possible, but I know at some point you need someone to make decisions. I make those decisions confidently. When I’ve heard from everyone, I feel like I can make a good decision that way.

Why did you choose Hopatcong?

Lazariuk: One of the things that attracted me to Hopatcong is the superintendent. I did some research before I applied and thought he’s very accomplished and has been published. As a principal, you have to work closely with the superintendent and he is someone I can learn from.

While every experience I’ve had has been very different, I also think there’s some parallels. As much as schools are different, they’re also the same. I think Hopatcong fits my skill set and my experiences. I think it’s gonna be a good fit as far as what Hopatcong needs in a principal.

What is your initial plan when you start?

Lazariuk: I’m finishing up in Hoboken and trying to spend any of my free time getting acclimated to Hopatcong. My goal right off the bat, in the first few days of school, is to get to know as many people as possible.

This week I’m gonna try to get to some practices. While I still have duties in Hoboken, I do have some time. I’m going to try to get to know as many kids as I can right now — school’s not in session, but they’re on the practice fields. I’ll try to go out and meet them and try to be in as many classrooms. I think it’s important for me to be in classrooms. I can sit in my office when the students are out of the building. I’m gonna just try to immerse myself. I did send an introductory letter out with the school’s mailing that goes out every summer, and I just sent one to the faculty also.

One thing that I’ve experienced at Montgomery and carried with me to Hoboken, and now to Hopatcong, which speaks to my leadership style, is I’m going to form a student advisory committee and a faculty advisory committee. I would basically invite any and all of the faculty to be involved of that. That I’ll leave as a voluntary basis. I’ll meet monthly with them.

For the students, I’d like to get a nice cross section, so whether I take volunteers or see what kind of turnout I get, or randomly select students so that I get a pulse of what’s going on with everybody. Because I’m actually not officially working there, I don’t know if they had that in the past or not, but that’s something that I want to do and that is a first step in just getting the lines of communication open. This job is really about communicating and relating to people.”

Do you have any long-range goals for the high school? 

Lazariuk: In listening to the way I lead, it lends itself that I wouldn’t have specific goals at this stage, but those committees are the steps toward coming up with goals. I would want to carry out the district goals, but that would have to wait until I’m in the job for a few months.

What are you most proud of in your professional experience?

Lazariuk: I was able to make a big difference in Hoboken in the one year that I was there. I was able to establish structure that the people who are taking over for me can pick up where I left off. I have a network of people in all these districts that I stay in touch with. They’re great resources for different things.

I don’t ever claim to be someone who knows everything, but I do know how to get answers when I come upon an area I’m not an expert in. Through relationships in different districts, I have that network. It just goes back to this question of what am I most proud of.

I’m very proud of some of my accomplishments as a teacher and a coach, but also as a vice principal at Montgomery. I was able to get a pulse on the faculty and roll out a program that the principal worked on with me to improve faculty morale. I think that forming those committees is just when you get to know people and understand them, they’ll work for you and they really own those goals. People feel like they created the goal when they were part of forming it, and they really want to work at it.

What I’m most proud of is the respect I’ve gained from people I have respect for—people who are very accomplished. As a teacher and coach, I am always reinventing myself. If I stayed in the classroom I would always find ways to make myself better.

What are your personal interests?

Lazariuk: My passion is spending time with my family. I have a 9-year-old daughter named Cassidy. I live in Rockaway with my husband and we just love spending time together. We have a rescue dog named Enzo.

Before Cassidy was born, I was very much into scuba diving, surfing, and still do it on occasion. I’m a certified lifeguard. More recently, as a stress reliever, I love to cook, to make my own bread and pasta when I have time. I love to read, too. When I had the long commute I tried to do a biography or leadership tapes, and throw in something non-work related once in a while. But I find that my work is also my hobby. because I love to try to find different motivational things for people. I’m a very optimistic person. My glass is always half-full. 

I came from a family of eight children. I grew up in Lincoln Park and went to Catholic school from first to eighth grade, and then Boonton High School. It opened up a whole world for me because I went from a very sheltered, small group. I graduated elementary school with 20 students, and they were all going to Catholic high school. I was one of the only ones going to public school, and that was a real scary thing for me. I just had such a great time in high school because there was so much more to do. 

I knew that I wanted to go to college and was kind of undecided when I first started. My parents weren’t college graduates and didn’t know a lot about getting into college. I didn’t have that from them, because it wasn’t something they really knew the ins and outs of.

My oldest sister had Down syndrome. She has since passed. I delivered my sister’s eulogy and I wrote a blog when I was teaching. The eulogy is on the blog. I do like to write, and that’s something I wrote under stressful circumstances emotionally, but I’m very proud of the eulogy I wrote for her. It makes you think about life.

Are you aware that some parents have concerns about a new principal coming in, never having met you?

Lazariuk: I’m an external candidate, and I have been going in, but people don’t know me. If it were someone from the district, everybody would know them. I was in the other day and met some parents. I walked up and introduced myself and talked to them. I think everything’s gonna be fine.

The faculty probably feels the same way, that they don’t know me, but how would they know me? I’m not there yet.

What would you like your new community to know about you?

Lazariuk: I guess I want them to know that I am a competent and student-centered principal. I’m very approachable, like along with those committees I kept in Montgomery as well as Hoboken.

It’s not always easy at times when you get caught up and you’re busy, but I keep an open-door policy. If somebody has a concern, they can not only email me or pick up the phone and call me, but they can stop in to the school. They might have to wait a few minutes if I’m in with another parent or student, but they can come to me. That’s the first thing I’d want them to know.

At the board meeting when your appointment did not initially have enough votes to pass, what was going through your mind?

Lazariuk: , I think they got to see a little bit of how I handle myself. There wasn’t another meeting scheduled until the third week of August, so I would have had to give 60 days notice from there. That was not at all what I was expecting. That would have presented me with a whole other decision to make.

To make a long story short, I was a little bit shocked that I didn’t get voted in, and the public was very upset. It made me feel good in a way, because the public seemed to want a principal at that meeting. So they went into closed session and bottom line, they came back with a slightly lower salary.

I did ask to speak during the public session. I wanted to let everybody know that I’m not trying to gouge the Hopatcong public. I actually ended up taking a little bit less than I was making before. Also, I didn’t want everyone to assume that I would be available the third week of August, because that would have put Hoboken in an unfair position. I had already told them that I was accepting this position.

I think the biggest thing in a position like this—and I’ve gotten much better at this since I became an administrator—you can’t take things personally. Everyone plays their role. I actually had suggested while they were in closed session that if it will help, I can take a little bit less, if this is gonna be a deal breaker. This was getting to a point where it wasn’t going to be good for anyone.

Where do you see yourself going from here?

Lazariuk: I feel like this is my final destination. While I loved Hoboken and in some ways felt that could be my home, the commute was really hard on my family. Not only was I far, but I was in New York traffic coming home. It’s not like I could say to my husband and my 9-year-old daughter, "come on up. I’m staying for a concert or a play, why don’t you guys come meet me and you can sit in the concert."

Will the next step in your career be superintendent?

Lazariuk: Someday maybe, but I feel that’s a very different job. To be honest, I haven’t gotten that far. I am just very, very excited and happy. Being a principal can be really overwhelming, so I don’t know if I’ll ever want to be a superintendent or not. I’m an ambitious person, so at some point in my career I guess I always look at that as the natural progression.

How do you describe your personality? 

Lazariuk: I’m very hard working and very goal driven. I think the competitive part of me helps, because I want to be the best. I want to be good at everything I do. I work really hard at it. I think I’m patient. I’m probably more impatient with myself, but I’m patient with other people. I’m an optimist.”