By Laura Waters
Here’s some exciting news: Lawrence Township Public Schools was recently named an Advanced Placement District of the Year by the A.P. College Board. This honor roll consists this year of 477 U.S. public high schools that, according to the A.P., “simultaneously achieved increases in access to AP courses for a broader number of students and also maintained or improved the rate at which their AP students earned scores of 3 or higher on an AP exam.” Congratulations to all our students, administrators and teachers!
On behalf of the board, I’d like to offer a warm welcome to our two new board members, Pepper Evans and Dana Drake. They will be sworn in during the first week in January when, per our new electoral calendar, the school board will reorganize. Pepper and Dana will join Deb Cherry, Mike Horan, Jo Ann Groeger, Bill Michaelson, Tom Patrick, Kevin Van Hise and me.
Nothing I can say here can express the board’s deep gratitude to and affection for our out-going member Leon Kaplan, who served for nine years in various leadership roles such as Vice President, Chair of Personnel, Chair of Community Relations and Legislative Affairs, New Jersey School Board Association Delegate and unofficial fount of knowledge and good humor. Leon, we’ll miss you. And still call you constantly for wise counsel and bad jokes.
Speaking of changes, this past October the whole district was overjoyed to welcome back our Technology Coordinator, U.S. Navy Commander Michael Dean. For 13 months Michael was deployed in Afghanistan, and his safe return to his wife Susan and his five sons, and to us (his other family), was celebrated district-wide.
Finally, every October marks the annual New Jersey School Boards Association Annual Workshop. This year there was terrific representation from LTPS. Board members were joined there by a number of our staff members who shared their knowledge with board members across the state. Business director Tom Eldridge, along with some of his staff, taught a class in “How to Read the Board Secretary’s Report;” operations manager Lana Mueller presented a seminar on “Why School District Public Relations;” Ben Franklin Elementary School principal Chris Turnball shared his knowledge at “Sustainable Jersey for Schools;” and, finally, at one of the most applauded sessions of the workshop, Lawrence Intermediate School principal Dave Adam and fifth-grade teacher Joe Jamison, taught a session called “How Flipped Classrooms Can Radically Advance Student Achievement.”
Jamison is now, by the way, an international star. His innovative use of new technology has attracted attention from all over the world, including England, Australia and India, as he’s expanded his use of SOLE, or “Self-Directed Teaching Environment.” Recently, for example, his students augmented their studies of the Roman Colosseum by sharing research with students in Rome who were studying the same subject. This collaboration continues and our students expand their world.
Laura Waters, Ph.D., is president of the Lawrence Township Board of Education. Her email is laurawaters6@gmail.com.
