ValleyView200712Winter - Hopewell Valley Regional School District

2
THE VALLEY VIEW W INTER 2007
Superintendent’s
Perspective
by Judith A. Ferguson, Ed.D
Explaining the meaning of manhood
in his poem If, Kipling penned this opening
line to his son.“If you can keep your
head when all about you are losing theirs
and blaming it on you…”
This is a powerful poem about keeping
life in perspective.We live in challenging
times when national panels are calling for a
remaking of public education and state
political leaders are determined to solve New Jersey’s property tax
dilemma by severely cutting back on school and municipal spending.
Whenever a system undergoes significant change, those within,
and those benefiting from the status quo, are likely to resist and perhaps
blame. But change we must and, fortunately, the destiny of the
school district had been set before I took the helm. My job is
merely to move it toward its mission.
The Strategic Plan, adopted after significant community debate
and input in 2000, is our roadmap. It lays out the direction and the
means to achieve a mission that is still, seven years later, viable and
achievable.What has changed since its inception is the level of
financial support available from local taxpayers, because of many
new factors including the economy, public disposition, and legal
constraints. For this reason, some of the original strategies to reach
our goals needed to be modified, and this was completed last year
with a revised, board approved plan.
Over the years, this community has generously given financial
resources to the schools, and students have flourished from its
investment.These resources are currently constrained.The district
must either find alternative resources or do with less.
New strategies may allow us to do more with less. We have already
begun to implement some and more will follow.A few strategies,
such as the elimination of non-mandated busing and the downsizing
of support services and pull-out programs, will allow up to reduce
the cost of education. Others, such as charging a fee for participation
in after-school activities and athletics, will allow us to continue programs
with alternative funding sources.
Strategies to engage community partners in the education of our
students can promote the mission of the district while simultaneously
decreasing our heavy dependence on classroom instruction.
While classroom instruction is critical, additional legitimate and
appropriate vehicles for learning are available to us. Internships, dual
credit programs with area colleges, and expansion of alternative
learning experiences that lead to high school credit will help us
maintain a viable and exciting program while containing costs.
I know from experience that change brings anxiety and confusion
can lead to blame.We need to keep our heads during this potentially
rough ride ahead of us as the district transitions and adjusts.
We have no options: we must either re-invent ourselves or let others
do it to us. In the words of Rudyard Kipling…
If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same…
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it… ■
Meet the
HVRSD Staff
Pat Kuhl
Substitute Teacher
Central High School
F
or her age, 81-year-old Pat Kuhl
has surprisingly few orders from
her doctor. No diet restrictions. No
exercise guidelines. She takes just
two medications, to keep her blood pressure and bone loss in check.
But as for Kuhl’s job, the doctor has been quite adamant.“She said,
‘don’t you ever stop going to school,’ ” related the legendary substitute
teacher, widening her bright blue eyes for emphasis.“And I have no
intention to.They keep me alive! I just love this age!”
“They” are the students at Central High School, where the spunky,
diminutive Kuhl has been a regular for the past dozen years, filling in
for teachers from auto shop to biology. (The only classes she passes on
are wellness and music.)
The great-grandmother of three is wildly popular with students
and staff alike for her positive demeanor and compassion. Colleagues
say she has a gift for making others feel good about themselves, and
students bear extraordinary affection for her.
“Everybody I know loves her,” says freshman Kristin Morocco.
“She’s really sweet and she has control of the class because everybody
respects her.”
“Students love Pat,” confirms principal Mike Daher.“They really
do look out for her.”
And that’s saying something.At 4’11”, Kuhl could easily be swallowed
up in the mass of bodies and swinging backpacks that choke
corridors between classes.“They’ll say ‘here comes Mrs. Kuhl’ and
they make way for me.Well, that’s flattering to an old bird like me!”
she says with one of her characteristic, impish winks.
The retired high school English teacher from Virginia hadn’t lived
in the area for a full month in 1995 when she told her husband,
Phineas, a retired insurance company executive, that she didn’t intend
to sit around their new Pennington condominium. She missed the
rhythms and energy of a high school campus, so she signed up as a
substitute teacher.
The first call had her report to CHS.“I always felt (then-vice principal)
Rich Lang was looking at me and thinking ‘What in the Sam
Hill is SHE doing here’ ” she confided.
Before long, the Corning, N.Y. native was a part of the CHS family.
Today she is in a classroom at least once a week, sometimes every
day.“I’ve not had one bad day. Not one. I absolutely love this school
and these students!”
Her favorite classes are English, of course, and the 41-year teaching
veteran confesses to be “fascinated” by classroom innovations.
A lifetime spent with young people, though, has not calloused her
to the painful realities of adolescence. She intervenes when she sees
things that bother her, putting an arm around a lonely student or
working to mend ruptured relationships.
“I don’t want anyone unhappy here.This should be a joyous time.”
When she’s not teaching, Kuhl feeds her hunger for good literature,
curling up with compelling biographies and English murder mysteries,
and keeps tabs on twin daughters Joanne and Roxanne, both of
whom work in elementary schools. Son Thomas, a retired stockbroker,
lives with her. ■