Dr. Patricia Hughes Calls to Mind Memories of a Remarkable Career
There is a lot of information swimming around in the head of the Washington Township Public Schools’ science department supervisor Dr. Patricia Hughes.
The periodic table. DNA and Genome sequencing. Information on antibodies and antigens, bacteria and beta particles, covalent bonds and cytoplasm, vectors and zygotes. A seemingly endless glossary of terms spanning across scientific areas of specializations and stored up over decades of courses that were engrained in her gray matter while a student, a teacher and a supervisor.
There also are the recollections of a grammar school student at Sacred Heart School in Camden, N.J., who first fell in love with the field, and the memorable lyrics of iconic blues guitarist B.B. King “Never Make Your Move to Soon” jockeying for space in her brain.
On December 31, 2019, Dr. Hughes will permanently hang up her lab coat, close the door on the newly renovated science rooms at Washington Township High School and say goodbye to 38 middle and high school Washington Township teachers whom she has guided for the past 16 years. She leaves with countless contributions and accomplishments, and very few regrets.
“I was brought up in a family that valued education greatly,” Hughes said. “My mother attended a one-room school house in Minnesota. At the time that she was going to first grade, she could not speak English because her parents had come from Poland. She would come home from school and teach English to her parents. My father was absolutely enthralled with education. He always would tell us ‘the only thing you have in your possession, that no one can take from you, is your education.’ Because of that, I always thought I would like to reach the pinnacle of education. Even as a grammar school student, I knew that I wanted to be a scientist.”
Following graduation as a Bloustein Scholar from Paul VI High School, Hughes earned a biology degree from the College of Misericordia in Dallas, Pa., where she had a passion for genetics and wanted to be a medical technologist.
“I was very interested in the work with the microscope,” she said, “but when I realized that I would have no direct contact with patients, that there would be no humanistic connection, that changed my mind drastically.”
Instead, Hughes took the advice of a professor who recognized a talent in her and sought a student-teaching position at Dallas Senior High School.
“The minute I walked into the high school classroom, I knew that was it,” Hughes said. “That was where I belonged. I belonged in education.”
Hughes’ first teaching assignment, as a seventh - and eighth- grade math and science teacher at St. Charles Borromeo in Cinnaminson, N.J., confirmed that she had made the correct career choice. It also put her in contact with a fellow teacher and mentor, Rosemarie Farrow, who eventually would land the job as the principal of WTHS and work again with Hughes in the town that she has called home for 35 years.
Hughes spent 11 years at Sacred Heart High School in Vineland and moved into public education in the Audubon School District, where she taught mostly biology, grades 7-12, and also instituted the anatomy and physiology class, which became dual-credit certified through Camden County College. With never a sabbatical nor a leave of absence, Hughes continued her own educational journey, earning her master’s degree in biology at Rutgers University, her supervisor, principal’s and superintendent certifications, and a second master’s in educational leadership at Rowan University. She eventually earned an Ed.D. at Wilmington University in educational leadership and innovation.
When the science supervisor position opened in Washington Township in 2003, Dr. Hughes sought out the challenge, having served as a K-12 supervisor of science, math and technology at the Pittsgrove Township Public Schools.
“Even though I thoroughly enjoyed my work in the classroom, I thought I could affect greater change and a greater number of students if I moved into the supervision realm,” she said. “I was very grateful and thrilled to be awarded the job in Washington Township.”
Having moved through progressive programs as a student, Hughes sought to bring that innovation to Washington Township. Her science department was the first to employ the use of laptops in the classroom. She lobbied for much-needed lab renovations and better equipment. She worked closely with her teachers to address the needs of the “lost middle,” students at the college prep level “who don’t realize how much talent and ability they have until they open their minds and try something new.” She and her staff took advantage of curriculum revision, opening innovative courses to attract a greater number of students, introducing new courses (forensic science, veterinary science, biotechnology, organic chemistry, marine biology, and atmospheric and space science) and expanding options for students, including Advanced Placement courses in environmental science, chemistry, biology and two levels of physics.
Hughes is also credited with beginning the WTHS Science League and the establishment of a chapter of the Science National Honor Society at the school. She also instituted the Science Symposium, which is now coordinated annually by the Science League students and brings professionals and many WTHS alumni back to share their educational and professional journeys.
“What I most admire about the teachers that I supervise is their dedication to their students,” Hughes said. “I know every day, they are looking out for their students and doing the right things for them. They are making decisions based on what is the correct thing to do to have their students learn. They are very humanistic. They will go above and beyond, stay after hours to help them. They are creative and innovative. They are willing. They are able. And they are extremely dedicated and professional. It has been a gift to me to have worked with all of them at the end of my professional career.”
As that career draws to a close, Hughes, who has served as a member of the executive board and an officer of the Southern Regional Chapter of the New Jersey Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, is reminded of that little grammar school student and what words of wisdom she might impart to her.
“I would say to her, ‘You listened carefully when you were told to follow your passion. You found out what that was, and you went there. You didn’t have a planned journey, but everything you did on the journey led you to where you ended up. And I would tell her to always remember the struggle will get you there. And hard work is not something that you should not look forward to.”
Without question, Dr. Hughes’ hard work has impacted hundreds of teachers and thousands of students.
“I am always so grateful,” she said, “when I see my former students out in the community, and I quite often do, and they’re working in a hospital and I’m walking down the hallway and they stop me, and they say, ‘Do you remember me? You were my biology teacher. I love being a nurse.’ ‘Do you remember me? I became an x-ray technician. You always told me I could do this, and I did do this.’ That is the most fulfilling thing to me, when I see one of my former students, like Mrs. Amy Carpinelli, teaching science at WTHS.
“I have enjoyed being able to take a person who was afraid or nervous about something in science and break it down, talk to them about it and really make it humanistic and not be numbers on a page or calculations that they had to figure out and just make it understandable to them and to show them that it can be understood. Anything can be understood, if you put the time and effort in. I think that whatever career you choose, if you have certain goals, if you are doing the things you are doing for altruistic reasons and you are following your moral compass, which I have always done - turn the mirror so that it’s facing the other person not looking at yourself, then -if you do those things, and you have goals you want to accomplish, you know that patience should help you get there. And I always keep in mind a B.B. King song, and it says, ‘never make a move too soon.’ Because if you are patient and you’re steadfast and you are persistent, you can probably reach the goals that you know are the right goals, using your moral compass.”