Innovative and all-inclusive, the Washington Township School District continues its proud tradition of excellence in education by routinely moving every child forward through a broad, standards-based curriculum designed to develop engaged and accomplished life-long learners. Administrators, teachers, counselors, parents and community members join in guiding this forward progression by challenging and empowering some 10,000 students enrolled in our 11 schools. Through this support network, students are encouraged to flourish in a safe and structured environment that affords countless opportunities for self-discovery, growth and expression. This collaborative network plays an essential role in ensuring that students emerging from the Washington Township Public Schools graduate with both the skills and self-worth to succeed in a rapidly changing and ever-challenging world.

Extraordinary programming and overall excellence has brought proud distinction to our district over the last several years.

• The District’s Annual “Super Bowl Helping Hands Hoagie Sale” earned a 2013 Jefferson Youth Service Award from the Community Foundation, the Governor’s Office of Volunteerism, the Star-Ledger/Nj.com and the Governor’s Advisory Council on Volunteerism in the “community building and citizenship” category.  The New Jersey Governor’s Jefferson Awards honor adults and youth who perform outstanding, project-based, community service without expecting recognition or reward.

• Washington Township High School was awarded a Jefferson Awards for Public Service Gold Banner and selected as the top New Jersey Leadership High School in the statewide Students in Action Spring Competition. WTHS student leaders on the Students in Action team, under the leadership of teacher Eileen Lucarini and community volunteer and Board of Education member Josh Aronovitch, achieved top scores in the written and oral sections at the 2013 Regional Competition hosted April 19, 2013, at Rowan University.  They were chosen by a panel of local judges for the best presentation, showcasing the program’s seven goals in the Student in Action program, and for their more than $182,000 philanthropic contribution to the community and their school.

• Washington Township High School Wrestling Coach Ron Ippolite was named District 30 Coach of the Year.

• Washington Township High School science teacher Mary Howard was selected for a 2012-13 Fellowship in the National Science Teachers Association’s (NSTA) New Science Teacher Academy. Howard was one of 244 science teachers selected nationwide and one of only four science teachers from New Jersey to earn admission to the Academy.
  
  
• School Head Athletic Trainer Tanya Dargusch became the third female inducted into the Athletic Trainers Society of New Jersey (ATSNJ) Hall of Fame on February 24, 2013.
  
  
• Washington Township High School was recognized as a member of the College Board’s Third Annual Advanced Placement (AP) Honor Roll.  The award is presented each year to districts that are able to expand access to AP courses to a more diverse group of learners while simultaneously improving performance.  The honor is the first for the district, which was among 539 districts from 44 of 50 states in the United States and six Canadian provinces recognized. The Washington Township School District , which currently offers 18 advanced placement courses, was one of only 34 districts in New Jersey to earn honor roll distinction and the only district in Gloucester County to be recognized.
  
  
• The Washington Township School District was honored as the 2012 Safety District of the Year by the Gloucester, Cumberland and Salem County School Districts Joint Insurance Fund (GCSSDJIF).  WTPS scored 95 points out of a possible 100 points in determining the award and claimed a $4,000 award for the achievement.  The District was lauded for taking an active role in ensuring the safety of its students and staff through critical risk management decisions that limit losses and preserve critical funds needed for the quality operation and success of its schools.
  
  
• The Washington Township High School Varsity cheerleaders claimed National Championship status after placing first at the America’s Masters Cheer Competition hosted January 26-27, 2013, in Baltimore, MD.  In addition to the title, the team, under the direction of coaches Judy Nelson, Lauryn Atkinson, Jenny Kerfoot and Christine Oagaro, also received the prestigious Sportsmanship Award.  It was the 8th national championship for the program since 1997.

• Supervisor of Social Studies Steve Gregor and Elementary Supervisor Christine Gehringer were elected to the Board of Directors of the New Jersey Council for the Social Studies (NJCSS). Representing the southern region, Gregor and Gehringer both will serve on the Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Policies committee, serving two- and one-year terms, respectively.

• Washington Township High School technology education teacher Dale Biebel was honored by the New Jersey Technology and Engineering Educators Association as one of five “Innovative Technology Education” award winners state-wide. Biebel received his award for a design project he has his students complete where they must create a DVD package for a movie in which they star.

• The Washington Township High School Minutemen baseball program was the recipient of the New Jersey Baseball Umpires Association’s 2012 South Jersey Sportsmanship Award.

• Washington Township Public Schools Visual and Performing Arts Supervisor Bob Frampton and Washington Township High School Music Teacher Jim Beyer received the New Jersey Music Educators Association Distinguished Service Award, recognizing educators who have honored themselves with faithful service to music education in New Jersey

• Washington Township High School unveiled the District’s first-ever online course.   “Financial Literacy in the 21st Century,” a state-mandated course, will be available to juniors and seniors beginning in the summer of 2012 so as not to conflict with students’ desire or need to take other elective, honors, advanced and/or AP courses of studies during their last two years of high school.

• Washington Township High School Athletic Director Kevin Murphy was named 2011-12 Olympic Conference Athletic Director of the Year.

• Bells Elementary School Special Education teacher Mrs. Julia McGuckin has been named one of the National Association of Special Education Teachers’ (NASET) Outstanding Special Education Teacher Award winners for the 2010-11 school year. This award is bestowed upon teachers through nominations by their respective school or district administrators, colleagues and parents. Only 32 teachers in the country, and just two from New Jersey, received the award.

• Chestnut Ridge Middle School Humanities Teacher Lori Bathurst, the school’s 2010-11 Teacher of the Year, has been selected as the 2010-11 Gloucester County Teacher of the Year by a five-person committee of area educators. 

• The Chestnut Ridge Middle School Team 7C Shining Stars won the 2010-11 New Jersey Middle Schools Association Team Excellence Award. Given to only one school in the state, the award was in honor of an interdisciplinary unit on Veterans Day and the many events the team held in conjunction with the important day of remembrance. Honored teachers include: Team leader Linda Martins (Reading), Lisa Schrumpf (Science), Lauren Pellecchia (English), Danielle Prendergast (Social Studies) and Maureen Mercogliano (Mathematics).

• Chestnut Ridge Middle School Humanities Teacher Lori Bathurst was the recipient of the 2010 Best Practices Award from the Committee on Teaching About the United Nations for the genocide education program that she has created and developed at the school.  Her program “Humanities Hope for Change” explored the causes and effects of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. She was recognized at the United Nations in New York City in January 2011.

• Chestnut Ridge Middle School Humanities Teacher Lori Bathurst was the recipient of the 2010 Joan Lavine Keats Social Justice Award from the Julius and Dorothy Koppelman Holocaust/Genocide Resource Center at Rider University for the genocide education program that she has created and developed at the school.
  
  
• Washington Township High School Athletics was recognized for being disqualification free in 2010-11 by the NJSIA
  
  
• Washington Township High School Girls Lacrosse Coach was honored as 2011 New Jersey State Coach of the Year and Northeast Sectional Coach of the Year
  
  
• Washington Township High School Girls Indoor Track and Field Coach Bruce Burdsall was honored as 2011 New Jersey State Coach of the Year

• Bells Elementary School Special Education Teacher Ellen Waite has been selected as one of 41 teachers nationwide to receive the 2010 Outstanding Special Education Teacher Award by the National Association of Special Education Teachers. The award is granted annually to special education teachers who have demonstrated outstanding achievement as a teacher in the field of special education and recognizes the special skills and excellence of special education teachers throughout the United States.

• Chestnut Ridge Middle School's Seventh-Grade Humanities Program "Humanities Hope for Change" and Teacher Lori Bathurst received the New Jersey Association of School Administrators/N.J. Anti-Defamation League 2010 Aaron Flanzbaum 21st Century Democratic Heritage Award. The “Humanities Hope for Change” program was a unit created by and for Bathurst's students, intended to gain background knowledge on discrimination/prejudice issues, their root causes, and the tools that can be used to bring an end to these societal issues. The students discussed the book Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life in Rwanda by Rosamond Halsey Carr and Ann Halsey Howard. In addition, Ms. Halsey Howard came to CRMS for a presentation and question/answer session. After that event, the students created a website on prejudice/discrimination and genocide at www.humanitieshopeforchange.pbworks.com.

• The Washington Township High School Business Education Department inked an agreement with Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business. The articulation agreement specifies that students who successfully graduate from WTHS in the top 20-percent of their class with a minimum of 1200 on their SATS and a minimum of a 550 SAT score in mathematics and have successfully completed three high school business courses automatically will be accepted into Drexel’s LeBow College of Business. Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business is recognized by Entrepreneur magazine and The Princeton Review as having one of the top three entrepreneurship programs for graduate students in the country.  LeBow College also placed sixth for undergraduate programs.

• Washington Township High School Chinese Teacher Ron Dempsey was invited to serve as a panelist at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages’ (ACTFL) National Convention held in San Diego, Ca.  The Panel addressed the concerns of non-native speakers who are teaching Arabic, Chinese and Russian. Dempsey’s participation was funded by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs through the U.S. State Department.
  
  
• Washington Township High School was selected to participate in the New Jersey Department of Education’s initiative “New Jersey’s Model for High School Reform in World Languages: Building a Linguistically and Culturally Competent Workforce.” 
  The program, which runs from September 2009 through June 2013, enabled the school’s world languages staff and students to participate as a pilot school in a state effort to improve world language instruction.  The goal of the pilot was to allow for a greater number of students to achieve higher levels of foreign language proficiency for use in the global workplace.
  
  
• Washington Township School District Receives $500K American History Grant
  The Washington Township Public Schools is the recipient of a nearly half-million-dollar federal grant that will be used to enrich the District’s American History teachers. The U.S. Department of Education’s Teaching American History grant program is highly competitive, and just four districts in New Jersey had their applications accepted. Washington Township will receive $499,995 – $166,665 per year for three years – which will be used to provide the District’s history teachers with professional development both during the summer and the school year.
  
  
• Washington Township Elementary Schools Receive “Picturing America” Program
  Washington Township’s six elementary schools were among more than 56,000 schools and public libraries across the nation to receive the “Picturing America” program, a free National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Initiative that brings great American art directly to classrooms and libraries across the country Bells, Birches, Hurffville, Thomas Jefferson, Wedgwood and Whitman Elementary Schools each were awarded 40 large, high-quality reproductions of great American art for permanent display and a comprehensive teachers’ resource book to facilitate the use of the works of art in core subjects, including American history, social studies, language arts, literature, and civics. 

• Washington Township High School Designated as a Model School in the Arts by the New Jersey Arts Education Partnership: Washington Township High School has been tabbed as a Model School in the Arts by the New Jersey Arts Education Partnership (NJAEP). The award acknowledges the excellence of the school’s Visual Arts, Dance, Theater, Orchestra, Band, Chorus and Music Technology programs. The NJEAP is designed as a statewide arts education advocacy model that applies new technologies and communication strategies with “best practices” to create a vibrant organization to advance arts education in New Jersey.

• Washington Township High School Repeats as Recipient of 5-Star Exemplary Technology Education Program: Washington Township High School was named as one of seven high schools in the State of New Jersey to be recognized with a 5-Star Exemplary Technology Education Program award from the New Jersey Technology Education Association (NJTEA).  Washington Township, which had received the same distinction in 2003, is the first school in the entire state to receive renewal of its 5-star status.  Only one other program in South Jersey, Gateway Regional High School, was recognized as a 5-Star program.  The other honorees were schools located in Central and North Jersey.

• Bells Elementary School Counselor Named Gloucester County Elementary School Counselor of the Year: Bells Elementary School Counselor Frank DeFamio was named the Gloucester County Elementary School Counselor of the Year by the Gloucester County Professional Elementary School Counselor’s Association (GCPESGCA).  An elementary counselor in Washington Township for 29 years, DeFamio has distinguished himself through his exceptional handling of student issues, parent conferencing and classroom guidance. 

• Orchard Valley Middle School Counselors Named Gloucester County Middle  School Counselors of the Year: Orchard Valley Middle School guidance counselors Barbara Smith and Mickey Shaw were named co-recipients of the 2008 Guidance Counselor of the Year award from the Gloucester County Middle School Counselors Association.

• WTHS Science Teacher Among 10 Cited in Nation: Washington Township High School Science Teacher Amy Carpinelli was selected as one of 10 semifinalists in the Shell Science Teaching Award program. The national award recognizes one outstanding classroom science teacher (K-12) who has had a positive impact on his or her students, school and community through exemplary classroom science teaching.

• District Social Worker Appointed to New Jersey Commission on Bullying in Schools: Chestnut Ridge and Bunker Hill Middle School Social Worker Camy Kobylinski was appointed to the 14-member New Jersey Commission on Bullying in Schools. In addition to hosting three public hearings, the commission reported its findings and recommendations, along with any legislation it desired to recommend for adoption by the Legislature, to Governor Jon Corzine.

• WTHS Athletic Director Honored by NJSIAA: Washington Township High School Director of Athletics Kevin Murphy was recognized by the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association as a recipient of a Service Award. 

• WTHS Captures First State Indoor Track Championship Title: Washington Township High School captured the school’s first indoor track state championship title with a win in the State Group IV Indoor Track Relay Championships on January 17, 2009.  The 4x400 relay and sprint medley relay combination of Tim Carey, Devon Carter, Nick Krauss and Xavier Fraction were first-place winners.

• Washington Township Tabbed 58th Best Place to Live in Money Magazine’s “America’s Best Small Cities” Ranking: Washington Township, New Jersey was honored in the August 2008 issue of Money Magazine as one of America’s Best Small Cities in which to live. Washington Township placed 58th among 716 towns across the nation with populations between 50,000 and 300,000 based on several factors, including jobs/economy, safety, education, housing affordability, and leisure/arts. According to the magazine, Washington Township scored its highest mark in education and its second-highest mark in safety.

• The Washington Township Public Schools and Orchard Valley Middle School Humanities Teacher Mrs. Nancy Mazgajewski has been recognized in the 22nd annual School Leader Award competition hosted by the New Jersey School Boards Association. One of five recipients statewide and the only South Jersey winner, Mazgajewski was cited for her unit on the study of global genocide called "Not on Our Watch."

• The Washington Township High School's anti-bullying initiatives, including the C.O.W. ("Changing Our World") Project, received the 2007 Aaron Flanzbaum 21st Century Democratic Heritage Award from the New Jersey Association of School Administrators and the Anti-Defamation League.
  
  
• Washington Township High School earned designation as a Just for the Kids-New Jersey Benchmark School, 2006, by the Business Coalition for Educational Excellence based on its students' performance on New Jersey's standardized assessments.
  
  
• Orchard Valley Middle School was selected as the recipient of the Ninth Annual Herman and Marie James Award from the Rowan University College of Education. The award annually recognizes a school for "creating an excellent and exciting educational environment."
  
  
• Orchard Valley Middle School received the very competitive HP Technology for Teaching Grant worth more than $31,000 for a project entitled, "The Mystery of Genetics."
  
  
• Washington Township Public Schools' elementary initiative "Student Farmers Grow and Give," a community collaborative with Duffield's Farm Market, was selected to represent New Jersey in the pool of contenders for the National Civic Star Award.
  

• Two of the District's schools – Washington Township High School and Hurffville Elementary School– were among only 22 schools in New Jersey honored with Governor's School of Excellence Awards . Each school received a $25,000 grant.
  
  
• Washington Township High School’s English as a Second Language (ESL) initiative “I....On Diversity!” was awarded a 2005-06 Outstanding Program Award by the New Jersey Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (NJASCD), one of only four programs so honored statewide.
  
  
• Bells Elementary School was featured in a cover story on the classroom use of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) in the nationally circulated March 27, 2006, issue of Scholastic Magazine's 5/6.
  
  
• The District's six elementary schools were collectively awarded one of eight Exemplary Partnership Program Awards for their "Student Farmers Grow and Give" project by the New Jersey Association of School Administrators and the New Jersey Association of Partners in Education.
  
  
• Whitman Elementary School was named as one of 48 finalists for the Intel and Scholastic Schools of Distinction.
  
  
• Chestnut Ridge Middle School was selected as a host site for a presentation on internet safety by prominent state officials, including the acting commissioner of education and the state attorney general.
  
  
• Chestnut Ridge Middle School was awarded a 2006 McDonald's Go Active! Academic Award for its innovation in physical and health education.
  
  
• Bells Elementary School was awarded a Best Practice Award for its Math in the Community Program.
  
  
• Birches Elementary School was awarded a Best Practice Award for its project entitled Creating Proficient Readers and Writers.
  
  
• Chestnut Ridge Middle School was awarded a Best Practice Award for its Exceptional Artists Studio.
  

• Three of the District's elementary schools – Birches, Wedgwood and Whitman Elementary Schools – were among only 22 schools in New Jersey honored with Governor's School of Excellence Awards . Each school received a $25,000 grant.
  
  
• Birches and Whitman Elementary Schools were singled out as New Jersey Star Schools. The schools were among only six schools given this distinction statewide.
  
  
• Washington Township High School 's Freshman Transition Program was recognized as a New Jersey Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (NJASCD) Outstanding Program , one of only three programs so honored statewide.
  
  
• Birches Elementary School was recognized with a Best Practice Award for its program Promoting Positive Peer Relations.

• Washington Township High School earned programmatic recognition as a Five-Star School for Exemplary Technology Education Award winner, one of six schools in the state to be honored by the Technology Educators Association of New Jersey.
  
  
• The District's Middle School Holocaust/Genocide Education Program was recognized as a New Jersey Association of Schools Administrators (NJASA) and New Jersey Association of Partners in Education Exemplary Program . The program was selected as one of seven winners in the state.
• The District was recognized as the recipient of an Outstanding Program by NJASCD for its professional development program – “Peer Coaching.”
  
  
• Thomas Jefferson Elementary was recognized by the New Jersey Council for Disabilities.
  
  
• Birches Elementary received a Best Practice Award for its fifth-grade Geography Understanding: Regions of the United States project.
  
  
• Grenloch Terrace Early Childhood Center's successful Sign Language Program, which was recognized in 2003 by the New Jersey Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and by the New Jersey Association of School Administrators , was featured in articles written by Dr. Marilyn Daniels of the University of Pennsylvania and in an education video being created by Kathleen Robinson, an educator in England .

• Washington Township High School earned programmatic recognition as a Grammy Signature School for Music, the only Grammy Signature School in the state of New Jersey and one of only 50 public high schools nationwide commended for its high commitment to music education.
  
  
• Birches Elementary School received a program of excellence award by the New Jersey Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development for its site-based professional development model, Creating Proficient Readers and Writers .
  

• Washington Township's Music Program was recognized as one of the top 100 communities in the nation for Music Education by the American Music Conference.

• Washington Township High School earned programmatic recognition as a Grammy Signature School for Music in the program's inaugural year.