Verona School Community Meets Superintendent-to-be

The Verona school community got the opportunity Thursday night to meet the man who is poised to head the district at a meet and greet event in the library of Verona High School.

Steve Forte, currently principal of Hasbrouck Heights High School, is in the last stages of formally accepting the superintendent position in the district. Verona has been without a permanent superintendent since Charles Sampson to become Superintendent of the Freehold Regional High School District. Elizabeth Jewett, the district's Director of Instruction Studies, has held the superintendent position on an interim basis since Sampson stepped down.

About 40 residents came out to meet Forte, who was introduced by Board of Education President, John Quattrocchi. After a round of applause, Forte took the podium, and established his bona fides with the audience as a no-nonsense family man with a variety of ideas and experience.

"I believe the district's Understanding by Design plan is a very good plan, it just needs to be implemented. I'd like to explore some other areas to bring in revenue. All too often things are cut because we can't afford to pay for it, but I like to exhaust other opportunities to find money. There are ways to bring in some outside money," he said.

Forte said he had saved the Hasbrouck Heights district $500,000, and helped bring in an additional $500,000 in revenue from out of town tuition, a plan he said he hoped to implement in Verona.

Another program he spoke proudly of was the double enrollment program at the high school, which enables students to earn general education college credits at schools like Fairleigh Dickinson University, Seton Hall or Bergen Community College, all without leaving their high school, at a fraction of the cost of taking the class at a university.

"Students can earn up to 8 credits before graduating. The cost at Seton Hall is $1,000 a credit, taken in high school it's $75 a credit."

Another program he piloted was to add 72 hours of instruction time to the school year, which he achieved by eliminating wasteful chunks of time throughout the day, and converting those minutes to extra classroom time each day, which he says is the equivalent of adding two weeks to the school year.

Forte became particularly animated when he was asked to outline his technology vision for the district, and laid out his "Cadillac Plan" he hoped to achieve.

The plan, Forte said, is to implement district-wide Wi-Fi, and make iPads available to students, which he said are on their way to outpacing Smart Boards in school districts nationwide.

"It's going to take over everything. It's really going to happen. Right now, there are 600 schools in America using iPads exclusively for at least one class in their building, Hasbrouck Heights is one of the 600. By next year, I bet that number is 6,000."

Another policy Forte spoke of that he instituted in Hasbrouck Heights is to make students responsible for failed classes by paying to retake them online over the summer, a move he said "really changed the culture of the school."

"Students who fail a course do not get a second chance on the taxpayer's dime to take the class. I'm talking about the run of the mill kid who doesn't bring his sneakers to gym class and fails. Some parents are paying up to $1,000 for these classes, and I'll tell you what, I bet that kid's not going to fail the class again next year. It really raised the bar."

Previously, Forte was a teacher for 16 years, mostly at the high school level, in districts from Livingston to Basking Ridge to West Orange to Glen Rock. He also coached basketball and wrestling. In 2006, after a brief stint as acting assistant principal of Glen Rock High School, Forte became principal of Lincoln Elementary School in Hasbrouck Heights, where he stayed until 2010, when he was made principal of Hasbrouck Heights High School, while also still serving as director of curriculum, director of technology, and testing coordinator for the district.

Once Essex County approves the terms agreed to in the contract between Forte and the district, which Quattrocchi said could be complete by Nov. 1, Forte must give 60-days notice to his current district, but could take his spot at the helm as early as the first of the year.