State of the Fort Lee School System

In March, the Fort Lee Board of Education accepted the resignation of School Superintendent Steven Engravalle, leaving the Fort Lee School district without a leader.

The Board appointed Assistant Superintendent, Dr. Sharon Amato, as the interim Superintendent until they convene the process of making a permanent appointment.  

During the Board's meeting of March 28, parents and teachers expressed concern about the state of the Fort Lee School District given the "seemingly endless upheaval in administration," as one teacher who did not want to go on record, said.

Patch recently sat down with Dr. Amato to talk about the state of the Fort Lee School district and how, during her time at the helm, she is guiding the district out of a period of turmoil and engaging the students, teachers, parents and community in bringing stability and success back to the district.

Whether her appointment is temporary or permanent, Amato has inherited a fractured school district emerging from over a decade of administrative instability. While at the helm, her mission is to set forth progressive goals that will change the face of education to reflect the real world that these students will be entering upon graduation.

Amato arrived in Fort Lee in 1984 as an ESL teacher in School No. 3. She quickly advanced to teach in every school within district, becoming the supervisor for ESL Bilingual and World Languages K-12.

"27 years ago I was attracted to the diversity of the Fort Lee School District," Amato said. Her goal was to advance her education so that she could be in administration where her ideas for moving the district forward would carry weight.

She went on to obtain her doctorate in Educational Leadership, Management and Policy and was inducted into Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education in 2010.

With approximately 3600 enrolled students and almost 50 languages spoken in district, Fort Lee has the largest elementary level ESL population. Amato holds that diversity is Fort Lee's greatest strength as well as its biggest challenge. Which is why it is difficult to compare Fort Lee to any other school system.

And it is a diversity such as this that defines the global marketplace that graduates will encounter upon graduation. Something that Amato wants to capitalize on and integrate into the creation of a 21st Century learning environment within the Fort Lee school district.

Acknowledging that the district is educating students for jobs, that in many cases, do not yet exist in a marketplace with diminishing boundaries, Amato said, "The world continues to change at a rapid pace and it is our jobs as educators to prepare our students for that real world experience."

According to Amato, education must be global because the world is global--a reality that classrooms must reflect if they are going to produce successful graduates and future entrepreneurs, managers and workers.

And Amato says that this real world reflection focuses on two initiatives: working to build a solid technology infrastructure and providing effective training for teachers so that their methodology can not only keep pace with these changes, but stay as far apace of them as they can.

"There has never been a time when education has had enough money," Amato said. "It's our job as administrators to achieve district goals in innovative ways at the least cost to the taxpayer."

Important to Amato is making the community a partner in the district's education of its students.  

"The most effective way to respond to the needs of the students is by bringing the community in and making them a partner in the success of the children," she said.

Amato said that for the first time in over a century, educational models are changing. The 19th Century model of rote memorization and one word answers no longer stands. 21st Century education presses both educators and students to be innovative and employ critical thinking in every discipline from math to physical education.

"We want students not only to be able to answer a question correctly, we want them to explain how they arrived at the answer," Amato said. "In the real world of business, they will have to explain how they arrived at a solution or a decision in order to be an effective contributing member of a team."

According to Amato, the information age is over. "It's what we're doing with this information we're able to gather at record speed that matters now," she said. "It's how we're engaging the students to use it to make the world a better place."

Creativity, innovation, leadership--all that starts with who is leading the district--and filters down through the system to create a dynamic, successful school system, Amato said.

And just as education has changed, Amato said that leadership has also changed. Historically, Amato said that to be a good leader meant having good management skills. Although she believes that is still an integral part of the job, leadership now leans heavily on innovation and creativity to be strategically forward thinking.

"Leadership today means managing change without creating chaos," she said.

With the support of the Board of Education, Amato is focused on the following goals:

Focus on technology: Computers are the 21st Century's primary learning devices and, with the Board, Amato is committed to increasing the ratio of computers to student and develop a viable wireless system. 

"If you're going to talk about 21st Century learning classrooms, you have to include technology that is not only up-to-date, but usable," Amato said. 

Citing the technology report developed by District Technology Coordinator, Jason Ruggiero, Amato said that the three concepts to 21st Century learning Fort Lee is committed to include:

• Student-centered learning
• Teacher as a facilitator of learning
• Technology as an enabler of learning

This also includes the Bring Your Own Device to School (BYOD) initiative that other Bergen County districts are employing.

Integrating technology into the classroom experience to better engage students by using the very tools in class lessons that are part of their everyday life--computers, cell phones, tablets--is one of the district's initiatives.

Amato recognizes that the student's technology is not an optional gadget; they are necessary resources and the way these students do their work. It is her belief that to create strong adults the district has to let them be adults. Also, technology is built into the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards and must be a focus of the district.

Investing in teachers: Amato believes that raising the bar of education means empowering the people who are on the frontlines of education. To accomplish this, Amato said that it is vitally important that the teaching staff be provided with the tools that can help them do their job.

"As a district we have to be committed to providing professional development for the teachers just as in corporate America training is provided to keep employees at their competitive best," she said.

Currently, teachers receive only eight hours of training per academic year.

"If you set the educational bar in your district high as we do in Fort Lee, then you have to have a highly trained staff," Amato said. "Training is an investment not only in our human resources, but in the success of our district. However, it takes the commitment of time."

Amato believes that despite all of the technology that is available in the classroom, the teacher is still the centrifugal learning force in the classroom. This is the reason why she embraces continuing professional development among teachers.

Professional development includes Professional Learning Communities (PLC's) and core learning workshops. PLC's consist of groups of educators committed to working collaboratively to research a subject and develop a class or program targeted towards both the students and the teachers area of interest.

The underlying assumption of PLC's is that continuous "embedded" learning for teachers is the key to improved learning for students. Amato believes that PLC's are a way "to respect the voices of our experts, the teachers." 

According to Amato, PLC's are the collaborative piece that pulls together the best work and teaching strategies of the most effective classroom teachers.

Amato believes that there cannot be growth unless opportunities for growth are presented to both the professional staff and the students. And that is what she is trying to concentrate on to help the district emerge from this period of instability.

One focused area of growth is creating a STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) program within the High School. The district is currently undertaking a renovation project in the science labs of the high school to accomodate STEM. Amato is aware that in today's global marketplace, industries use science, technology, engineering and math to answer the needs and demands of daily living. STEM is also important to offer to those high achieving students who are looking to be challenged.

Dr. Judith Fitzpatrick of Bergen Community College, the college's Director of Quality Assurance Program in the Division of Math, Science and Technology said during a STEM conference in January that students who graduate with a STEM degree are more likely to secure employment following graduation and will earn 25 percent more than their peers with a non-STEM degree.

Going Forward: Despite what the future holds for Amato, she said that while she is at the district's helm, she is commited to creating a learning environment that reflects the ever-changing world that the students will be graduating into.

Amato said that it is the goal of her team, along with the Board of Education, to design an effective learning experience that will take students into the global forum of the 21st Century.

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