Monday, Feb 17, 2020
by Keith Fernbach
Georgine Johnson ’17, a graduate of Rider University’s Master’s in Teacher Leadership program, has been named supervisor of special education, PreK-12, for the Hopewell Valley Regional School District. She earned this honor after nearly 20 years of teaching in a range of special education and general education settings.
Johnson says that earning a master’s from Rider opened the door for her to become a supervisor, not only because it gave her the necessary credentials but also because it showed her the possibilities of what she could accomplish. In fact, prior to enrolling in the teacher leadership program, she says she had no interest in a career as an administrator.
“I love teaching and I love supporting my colleagues in order to help the greater school community,” she says. “I thought I might ultimately like to run a lab classroom where I could invite teachers to see me model lessons and teach behavior management. I didn’t realize administration was something I wanted to do until I was exposed to the teacher leadership program.”
She says the program helped to change her mind by demonstrating how she could bring real change and improvement within the school system. “I started to realize maybe I could impact more students from a supervisory role than I could from inside my single, relatively self-contained classroom.”
Johnson chose her career path in education after seeing the influence one of her own teachers had on her when she was a high school student.
“I was originally planning to pursue accounting, which happened to have been one of my favorite classes,” she recalls. “However, I very quickly learned after my first semester of college that while I was relatively successful in my coursework, I had absolutely no desire to be an accountant. I realized that it wasn’t the subject matter that led me to choose accounting, it was my high school accounting teacher, who was teaching me something that I enjoyed and made me feel successful. I wanted to be in a similar position to make young people feel good about themselves and what they could do.”
So she switched majors, and earned her Bachelor of Science in Special Education, with dual certification to also teach general education. After graduation, she taught for several years in the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District before taking time off to raise her three sons.
During this time she worked part-time at a local pre-school, where she says she developed a special bond with an autistic child who didn’t connect with many people. “It was the most rewarding thing I had done in education up to that point. So when I decided to return to teaching full time, I knew I wanted to focus on special education.”
As luck would have it, there was a position available in her hometown Hopewell Valley Regional School District — the same school system she attended as a child and where she was presently sending her sons to school.
She would go on to play an integral role in developing and leading numerous special education programs and classes at the elementary, middle school and high school levels, and in late 2019 she was appointed to her current position. In this role, she works with the director of pupil services to supervise all special education staff, paraprofessionals, teachers, case managers and related therapists.
According to Johnson, one of the most beneficial aspects of the teacher leadership program was that the curriculum was designed to help working teachers address issues they were facing in the classroom. One of the ways this was done was through “action projects,” which she explains were assignments that required students to identify a need within their building or district, and after collecting data, conducting assessments and doing research, then implementing a process in order to fill that need.
She recalls that one of her action projects involved the benefits of a full-day kindergarten. “Our district at the time was considering the move from half day to full day,” she says, “and it was perfect because I was able to get onto a future planning committee and become a part of their full-day kindergarten subcommittee. Through that action project I was able to make the transition with the district to full-day kindergarten and help develop the curriculum.”
The program also helped her to grow professionally. “We analyzed different leadership styles and developed our own philosophy on leadership. As a leader, it was really important for me to not only reflect on practices that I had been involved in through the years, but what guided me to make some of the decisions that I had for myself, my students and ultimately the district.”
Johnson says she is “overwhelmingly excited” about her role because of the special connection she has to her community and the school system. “I am a Hopewell person and I’ve experienced this district as a student, a parent and a teacher. It’s incredibly rewarding to be able to contribute something new in my capacity as a supervisor.”
And while she is embracing the challenges of her job, she is already thinking about new ways to continue her professional growth. She says she’s very interested in Rider’s Doctorate in Educational Leadership program, in large part because of its cohort model and hybrid courses, and hopes that an Ed.D. from Rider can be the next step in her education. “When I earned my master’s I thought I was done for good, but now I would love to go back,” she says.
Photo courtesy of Hopewell Valley Regional School District