New teachers’ assignments due today

Hillsborough offers new staffer a one-week orientation.

By: Regina Tan
   "Your homework assignment is in two parts," Dr. Virginia Gittelman, assistant superintendent of the Hillsborough school district, told a group of about 90 new teachers last Thursday in the Hillsborough High School auditorium.
   "The first part: rest. Leave everything in your locker. You will work hard for the next 185 school days. The second part: think. Think about what you say on the first day. What you say on the first day of school sets the tone for the day… maybe even for the year," she said.
   This is a meeting few students and parents get to see: the priming of the new teachers in their schools. Unlike other New Jersey school districts, Hillsborough offers its new teaching staff a one-week orientation instead of a shorter two- or three-day orientation prior to the start of classes.
   The weeklong program provides the new teachers with a plethora of information in a short amount of time — a crash course in how their individual school functions administratively and resource wise — and also, an introduction to the larger framework of the district through their brief meetings with Dr. Gittelman and Superintendent Dr. Robert Gulick.
   After Dr. Gittelman’s introductory speech, the new teachers met with their mentors — veteran teachers from their assigned schools who will help them acclimate to their new school settings.
   For Morrisville, Pa., resident Kiran Little, who will teach special education at the Hillsborough Middle School, this will be her fourth year of teaching and her second time as a public school teacher.
   Although she also taught at a charter school and a private school, she came back to teach in the public school system because here she finds "more support and more resources" from the administration.
   Orientation had been especially helpful, she said, to give the new teachers time to get to know the administration — the "building block of the school," as she called it.
   During the week of orientation, she said, "we have time to build a bond (with them)."
   Christine Kirsche, another Hillsborough Middle School teacher who is new to the district, said in her 20 years of teaching consumer and family science, she had "never had an orientation as complete and thorough as this one."
   Perhaps the most important aspect of the new teacher orientation is to give the new teachers a support group to help them throughout the year.
   As Rebecca McManus, a South Plainfield resident who will teach eighth-grade literacy at the middle school puts it, "(Orientation) creates a sense of community among the new teachers."
   How well the new teachers learned the ropes at orientation will be tested when they meet their students today on the first day of school.