• 2009-10 Points of Pride

    • 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.