Washington Township

 

The Washington Township Board of Education approved the appointment of Jennifer Grimaldi from Director of School Counseling at Washington Township High School to the district's first Director of District School Counseling of Washington Township Public Schools effective July 2017. Grimaldi’s broadened district responsibilities include PreK-12 School Counselors and Student Assistance Coordinators, Section 504 Compliance Officer, Home Instruction, and Multi-Tiered System of Supports/Social Emotional Skills with homegrown "Building Better People" and the Anti-Defamation League's "No Place for Hate" initiatives.

Grimaldi was the Director of School Counseling at Black Horse Pike Regional School District for three years and 12 years as a high school counselor at Haddonfield Public Schools. She began her career as an elementary special education teacher in the Gloucester Township Public Schools and spent five years in the classroom before moving into a middle school counseling position, also in the Gloucester Township School District. 

A graduate of Holy Family University with a bachelor of arts degree in elementary education and special education, Grimaldi earned a master of arts in school counseling from Rowan University. She holds New Jersey certifications as an elementary teacher, teacher of students with disabilities, school counselor, student assistance coordinator, supervisor, principal, and school administrator. Grimaldi is also a licensed disaster response crisis counselor. She is the past president of the New Jersey School Counselor Association and adjunct at Rowan University, where she received the 2023 College of Education Outstanding Adjunct of the Year Award.

Grimaldi, a New Jersey Teacher of the Year nominee in 1997, was honored in 2008 as the Camden County School Counselor of the Year and in 2011 as a General Colin L. Powell Service Award recipient. She was the 2011 Naviance Excellence in Leadership national finalist and a 2013 New Jersey nominee for the American School Counselor Association Counselor of the Year award. Most recently, Grimaldi was Rowan University’s inaugural recipient of the Dr. Hector Rios Community Change Agent Award in May 2019 and was inducted into the Iota Chaper of the Delta Gamm Kappa in May 2020.