River Vale School District

393 Rivervale Road

River Vale, New Jersey 07675

www.rivervaleschools.com

CONTACT: Margie Druss Fodor

(201) 358-9260

mfodor@rivervaleschools.com

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

RIVER VALE TEACHER GETS STATE RECOGNITION

FOR CLASSROOM PROGRAM

RIVER VALE, NJ, June 18, 2003 -- The New Jersey Department of Education recently honored River Vale teacher Kathy Schwartz with a Best Practices award for her outstanding classroom program featuring student-led parent conferences, school officials announced.

The program Schwartz designed, “Portfolio-based, Student-Led Parent Conferences,” calls on her students to help run parent/teacher meetings by discussing portfolios they put together themselves. Students collect reading, writing and math in separate folders, then at the end of each term they choose two selections from each subject for a porfolio. Both the students and teacher assess the work, then the students talk about their assignments during the conferences.

“It puts the responsibility of learning into the children’s hands,” said Schwartz, a second grade teacher at the school district’s Woodside School.

She started the program at her prior teaching job in Boston and has been conducting it at Woodside since she began working there four years ago. Schwartz’s program was one of 50 Best Practices programs and eight Star Schools honored recently during a ceremony in Freehold from a field of more than 800 applicants.

Best Practices is designed to recognize successful school programs that address the educational needs of students and other standards, while Star Schools have a particular specialization with objectives to help students meet certain academic standards. Schwartz said she applied for the award, a certificate and banner that comes with tremendous prestige, this year on the suggestion of Woodside Principal Allen Spatola.

“This year’s award recipients are among the very best our state has to offer,” Commissioner of Education William L. Librera said. “These schools are excellent examples of what it takes to develop and maintain strong programs that address our students’ needs. Such programs and schools prepare our students for successful lives once they succeed in the K-12 system and move on to future endeavors.”

More information about the Best Practices program is available on the state Education Department’s Web site at www.state.nj.us/education. River Vale’s Web site can be visited online at www.rivervaleschools.com.

PHOTO:

WOODSIDE TEACHER KATHY SCHWARTZ

COURTESY OF THE WOODSIDE SCHOOL

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