Schools

Fort Lee School Superintendent to Lead Science Education Institute

The National Science Resources Center invited Superintendent Raymond Bandlow to serve as senior faculty and advisor at a strategic planning institute this summer

Fort Lee’s superintendent of schools has accepted an invitation from the Washington, D.C.-based National Science Resources Center (NSRC) to serve as lead faculty for a weeklong science education institute in New Jersey this summer.

Dr. Raymond Bandlow, who has served as superintendent in Fort Lee since 2007, will take a leading role, serving as senior faculty and advisor for the strategic planning institute, which takes place in Monroe, NJ in late July. The Fort Lee Board of Education recently approved Bandlow’s participation in the institute.

“I’m greatly honored to be asked to donate my services,” Bandlow said in a statement. “The only reason I can accept this invitation is that it will be held when our schools are not in session, and I can use personal vacation time for my absence from Fort Lee. I can think of no better way to use my ‘free’ time than to give back to the National Academy of Sciences, and through this institute, to my personal mission of service to youth.”

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The institute will include senior administrators from school districts in New Jersey and the mid-Atlantic region. Bandlow will assist district leaders in selecting research-based curriculum programs, organizing teacher training and implementing effective science programs.

Bandlow told Patch Monday he has participated in the institute “many times over the past 20 years.”

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“I’ll be working with some other faculty to organize their work to deliver [and implement] a good science education program,” he said. “Part of that is helping districts develop strategic plans for the implementation that take into account the necessary professional development and also organizing community support.”

Science education has been an ongoing focus throughout Bandlow’s career. Until 2001, he was a professor of leadership and math and science education at Kean University, where he consulted regularly with a National Science Foundation-supported initiative that assisted school districts in adopting “exemplary” science education programs, he said. He has also led science education seminars in New York, Washington, D.C., Providence, Hartford, Anaheim and Seattle, and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, was sent by the NSRC to New Orleans to advise schools during their recovery.

Bandlow said he believes science education in the Fort Lee school system is particularly strong.

“The elementary program, which is a hands-on, inquiry-based program is excellent,” Bandlow said. “We’ve seen some of the results of our high school program, especially our science research program, where students do things like individual, independent research with professors at Columbia Medical School. We have a very good [science] program.”

Bandlow said there isn’t a “formal” component of reporting back to the Fort Lee school board or the public after the institute, but he said that doesn’t mean the district won’t benefit from his participation.

“There are always things I take away from this kind of institute, or I learn a lot,” Bandlow said. “And there certainly will be some things that I can bring back. There usually are.”

The weeklong, NSRC-sponsored science education institute in Monroe, NJ begins the week of July 25.


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