Ocean City Superintendent Helps Select NJ Teacher of the Year

A sixth-grade language arts teacher from Salem County was named New Jersey’s Teacher of the Year for 2015, and the Ocean City Superintendent of Schools helped select her.

Woodstown Middle School teacher Chelsea Collins was named the Teacher of the Year on Wednesday by the New Jersey Department of Education.

Ocean City Superintendent of Schools Dr. Kathleen Taylor was part of the eight-member committee that helped select Collins from among the 19 County Teachers of the Year from throughout New Jersey. Two counties didn’t submit teacher of the year nominees.

Taylor was part of the months-long process that began with applications from each of the candidates over the summer, and had to review and score each candidate on a set rubric and scoring mechanism by July 31.

“Each candidate had a five-part paper application as well as a video,” Taylor said. “I was looking for a learning environment that was safe, inclusive, and challenging, as well as if the teacher would inspire other teachers.”

They used the applications to narrow the candidates down to five finalists. Interviews with each finalist were conducted on Aug. 20 at the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) Headquarters in Trenton.

Candidates were also asked to give a presentation.

“We were asked to look at how compelling the educators’ stories were and why they went into education, as well as what being a teacher meant to them,” Taylor said.

Taylor said she had Collins in mind as the winner from the very start.

“When I viewed the paper application, I couldn’t wait to see hher video, and after I saw the video, I couldn’t wait to meet her,” Taylor said.

Collins and the other finalists were honored during a ceremony on Wednesday in Trenton.

Collins graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a bachelor’s degree in advertising and public relations, and then earned her master’s in elementary education from The College of New Jersey. During those years, she spent a year at the University of Barcelona studying Spanish, international business, and Spanish architecture and painting.

Her work has been featured on NJTV’s Classroom Close-Up, as well as on the blog written by author and education consultant Steve Barkley. She enthusiastically shares ideas across the state through engagements such as the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association conference and the Department of Education’s RAC7 Literacy Workshop. She also serves as the sixth-grade team leader in her school.

“To me, my greatest accomplishments are in inspiring students to build their lives and their futures, and in showing that hard work and diligence will open doors and give them endless and limitless opportunities,” Collins said.

She also said she’s inspired when students give back to their community as a result of her influence. She said she “is thrilled when she gets a note from parents who can see progress that their children are making,” and said she is “touched when her students express their love of learning and acknowledge her role in their progress.”

The other finalists included Jennifer Clune, a K-2 special education teacher at Jeffrey Clark School in East Greenwich Township School District, Gloucester County; Michael Martirone, a ninth-grade social studies teacher at Egg Harbor Township High School in the Egg Harbor Township School District, Atlantic County; Darlene Noel, a third-grade teacher at Green Street School in the Phillipsburg School District, Warren County; and Kristine Shurina, an eighth-grade English teacher at Bridgewater-Raritan Middle School in the Bridgewater-Raritan School District, Somerset County.

Taylor said she was enthusiastic when asked to be part of the Governor’s Educator of the Year panel by the New Jersey Association of School Administrators (NJASA).

Prior to the start of the process, Taylor contacted 2011-12 New Jersey State Teacher of the Year Jeanne M. DelColle, former history teacher at Burlington County Institute of Technology, current Instructional Development and Strategic Partnerships Specialist at Stockton University, and Ocean City resident. In her work with Stockton, DelColle sends future teachers to the Ocean City School District to complete field work.

“I congratulated Dr. Taylor and warned her it’s a lot of work because those applications are not small; this is an extensive process,” DelColle said. “I told her to look for someone who has a potential for rapid growth, because their world is going to change [once they are chosen]. They’re going to meet the President of the United States and have all kinds of opportunities, and you want someone who is going to take that information and grow with it and learn, and then turn around and use it to help others.”

Taylor said she was inspired to be in a room with the state’s best teachers, calling it the “highlight of her career.”

She said she now looks to take this inspiration back to the Ocean City School District, which has produced several Cape May County Teacher of the Year winners, most recently in 2009, as well as the State Teacher of the Year in 1999.

Ocean City’s District Teachers of the Year for the past year were: Mary Beth Libro, Ocean City Primary School; Nick Verducci, Ocean City Intermediate School, and Michelle Dill, Ocean City High School.

The attached image was provided by the Ocean City School District: Ocean City School District’s 2014-2015 Teachers of the Year are recognized at a Board of Education meeting. From left: Joe Clark, Board of Education President; Superintendent Kathleen Taylor; Nick Verducci, Ocean City Intermediate School Teacher of the Year; Michelle Dill, Ocean City High School Teacher of the Year; Mary Beth Libro, Ocean City Primary School Teacher of the Year; Cathleen Smith, Ocean City Primary School Principal; Dr. Matt Jamison, Ocean City High School Principal; and Geoff Haines, Ocean City Intermediate School Principal.