Teacher Jay Gilligan wins Cranbury School’s Teacher of the Year award for his positive attitude, strong work ethic, and dedication to children.
By: Lacey Korevec
> Between coaching, teaching health and physical education, and spending time with his family, 44-year-old Jay Gilligan, athletic director at Cranbury School, has one busy workweek.
For the past 20 years, Mr. Gilligan has woken up in his Spring Lake Heights home at 5 a.m. to arrive at Cranbury School by 7:30 a.m. He begins his day with bus duty and then bounces back and forth between teaching physical education and sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade health classes. When school lets out, he coaches after-school sports and sometimes doesn’t make it home until 8 p.m.
But a busy schedule is nothing to complain about for Mr. Gilligan.
"I just enjoy it," he said of his job. "There’s not many people that really can say they really have gotten the right job the first time. I have. I love what I’m doing."
That kind of attitude is what resulted in his nomination and eventual selection as Cranbury School’s 2006-2007 Teacher of the Year. Teachers are nominated for the award by their fellow teachers, with ballots being tallied by someone outside the school. Once the top candidates are selected, a seven-person panel of community members chooses a winner.
Being named Cranbury School’s Teacher of the Year came as a shock to Mr. Gilligan, who also said it’s a great honor.
"There are so many great teachers at Cranbury and the fact that I got it, I’m just representing everybody else," he said. "It really amazes me that I got it with all the talented teachers we have. It amazes me and I’m just very honored."
Mr. Gilligan, who joined the district in 1987, said that what he does is critical for students. Teaching health to middle school students and physical education to younger students provides them with vital information that they can use throughout high school and beyond, he said.
"It’s great to have the academics the math and the English and the sciences but, to me, half of the person is having a healthy body," he said. "And between phys ed and health, I think they carry that throughout their lives. I want them to live long, healthy lives and health is a huge part of that."
In his physical education classes, Mr. Gilligan strives to introduce students to new sports and activities, he said. This year, he’s trying to incorporate cricket and golf into the curriculum, which he said are lifetime activities from which students will benefit even throughout adulthood.
"I’m always tying to add new and unique things to the curriculum," he said. "This year, I’m adding Native American games. I like to do dance not many people do dance. I’m just trying to always improve the program so that you’re not just rolling balls out to the kids. There’s always a point to everything we do every day."
Throughout the year, Mr. Gilligan can be found after school coaching cross-country in the fall, boys basketball in winter,, and track in the spring, but he also runs athletic sporting camps and coaches a traveling soccer team in his hometown, and serves as a recreation commissioner for his town.
"People don’t understand what kind of days teachers put in," he said. "I might not have a ton of paperwork like a regular classroom teacher, but with the coaching and the work I do for my regular classes, it adds up. But I’ve been doing it for 20 years, so it’s not as hard as it was the first three to five years, that’s for sure."
At home, he spends time with Paula, his wife of 17 years, his three children; Jimmy, 15, Jacqueline, 13, and Kate, 9, as well as Nugget, the family’s golden-cockapoo dog.
When he’s off the field and not at school, Mr. Gilligan said he enjoys gardening, traveling, camping, fishing and cooking.
"I really like to cook," he said. "My wife doesn’t cook at all in the summer. I do absolutely all the cooking. I don’t like to clean up afterward, but I like to cook. I’m great with the barbecue, but I like to cook big dinners, roasts, lamb, pork roasts. I’ll cook anything."
He said many students at Cranbury School might be surprised to know that he holds two master’s degrees: one in special education and one in educational leadership with a principal certification.
With the new accolade, Mr. Gilligan said he’ll continue doing what he loves most: working with his students, inside and outside of the classroom, to make a difference in their lives.
"I’ve known a lot of the eighth-graders from the time they were 5 years old," he said. "So, you watch them grow up and that’s really exciting. You watch them grow from little, tiny kids into young adults and that’s a very exciting part of teaching."

