John’s Career in Public Education – 1963 to 1975

 

John’s career in education began following graduation from college as a secondary social studies teacher in Plainfield, NJ beginning in 1963.  His tenure in Plainfield spanned the era of Civil Rights upheaval caused by the "School Busing Law' passed by Congress.  It was a life changing experience .

Success as a teacher, baseball and basketball coach and the ability to motivate and inspire students of all backgrounds lead to his promotion to acting Vice Principal for Discipline without certification at a time no one was interested in applying for this difficult job.   He created innovative strategies to resolve the major discipline problems in the school at a time of great social unrest.

This promotion without NJ certification included the requirement he pursue certification by enrolling in Rutgers University's Graduate School of Education at the School District’s expense.  He subsequently earned a Masters and Doctoral degree and was honored for his outstanding work by the faculty to be the recipient of the school's 50th Anniversary Distinguished Student Award.

Based on success in Plainfield he was recruited to be an elementary school administrator in the Dunellen School District to assist in the development and implementation of an individualized instruction program, and develop a more valid and reliable teacher performance assessment policy.

His doctoral dissertation at Rutgers focused of improving school community relationships leading to being awarded a grant from the NJ Department of Education to complete his research.  This also led to recruitment to the Chatham Township School District as Assistant to the Superintendent to solve a problem of poor community relations that resulted in the district’s failure to pass the school budget and denial of public approval for a much needed elementary school building project.

By creating positive relations with community influentials and a public relations campaign based on weekly newspaper articles the community relations problem was resolved, the school budget was passed and the construction of a new elementary school was approved in one year.

Bedminster Township became aware of the successes in Chatham Township which led to recruitment to become the district’s Chief School Administrator to improve discipline, cut education costs and improve student performance. All of these goals were achieved.

Following his career in education John began a career in educational and business consulting and the foundation of E-BMC E-Business Management Consulting to capitalize on the information technology (IT) revolution, the emergence of the World Wide Web and the Internet.