Dr. Howard Lucks LITTLE SILVER — Red Bank Regional (RBR) High School District announced that Dr. Howard Lucks would soon become the district’s new superintendent at its Aug. 19 meeting.
Lucks will succeed Dr. Edward Westervelt, who led the district for the past 11 years. Westervelt will officially retire Nov. 1.
Lucks, a Jackson resident, is currently principal of Franklin Township High School in Somerset. He will join the RBR faculty in mid-October.
“RBR is a very good school district on its way to great,” Lucks said.
A press release issued by the district states that RBR was ranked No. 64 out of New Jersey’s top 75 high schools in New Jersey Monthly Magazine.
“We should not be the 64th best high school in New Jersey, we should be number one,” Lucks said.
“I am very impressed with this school district. The teachers, administration and staff are top rate, the right ingredients for continued success. I look forward to guiding RBR to great.”
Board of Education President John Garofalo said Lucks is a great leader for the district.
“The board believes that Dr. Lucks’ many attributes, including his vision and passion for education, coupled with his collaborative approach, will well complement our incredibly talented administrative team to continue the trajectory of RBR’s substantial success,” Garofalo said.
Lucks has a 36-year career in education and school administration. He retired from the New York City school district in 2006 with a myriad of accolades and accomplishments.
Among these, he was named Educator of the Year five times and received the mayoral proclamation for distinguished service and the New York State citation for exemplary community service.
According to the district’s press release, Lucks was also awarded the competitive Chancellor Doctoral Scholarship to St. John’s University and earned his doctorate in 2002 with an awardwinning dissertation.
Lucks developed a love for science at a very early age. He later developed that interest as a science teacher in his hometown of Brooklyn.
“One of the most satisfying aspects of teaching is seeing the spark in a child’s eye as his or her passion for a subject grows,” Lucks said of his chosen profession.
While teaching in the NYC public school system, he was simultaneously employed as an adjunct professor at two New York colleges.
Lucks earned a master’s degree in guidance and counseling at Long Island University in 1978 and an administration and supervisor professional diploma from the City University of New York at the College of Staten Island in 1985.
In 1997, he became the principal of the New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn, which served a population of more than 3,000 students.
There, Lucks said he was responsible for restructuring the high school into small learning communities, a similar major endeavor that RBR has undertaken this month.
According to his background statement, Lucks also implemented numerous innovative staff development programs that emphasized integrating technology in the classroom, data-driven instruction (to plot student progress in order to plan and execute instructional interventions), and differentiated instruction in order to maximize learning for all students who may learn in different ways.
Other staff development programs he instituted centered on student-centered learning strategies, including critical thinking and brain-based and problem-based learning.
The district said that under Lucks’ leadership, New Utrecht High School received an A rating in NYC’s first public school progress reports, a grade only 23 percent of schools earned in the country’s largest school district.
As an independent consultant, Lucks assisted other school administrators and corporations in establishing and supervising small learning communities.
During his NYC education career, he also served as a borough supervisor for the New York State Biology Regents. Additionally, he served on the NYC Board of Education’s distinguished faculty program, where he mentored new and assistant principals.
Lucks is currently a member of the board of directors of the Globe Institute of Technology, which consults on academic affairs, curriculum and accreditation.
Lucks said that a highlight of his career occurred in 2005 when he traveled to China with the NYC leadership group to give lectures at several Chinese schools and universities as well as the Ministry of Education in Beijing.
Upon retiring from the NYC school systemin 2006, he began his second educational career in New Jersey, where he had moved four years prior, as the principal of Franklin Township High School.
At Franklin he restructured the 2,000-student high school into small learning communities and implemented and enhanced various other programs in the areas of staff development, safety, security and technology.
Lucks said he developed a program to address deficits in the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program and is proud to say that Franklin Township made average yearly progress under his tenure.
Under Lucks, Franklin High School, similar to RBR, was named a Model for Excellence in Arts Education by the New Jersey Arts Education Partnership.
Lucks said he considers the last two years at Franklin, where he concentrated on learning New Jersey educational financial and legal matters, a training opportunity to become RBR’s superintendent.
Lucks brings his considerable expertise in diverse high schools and smaller learning communities to RBR next month, noting that he is eagerly looking forward to implementing the International Baccalaureate program and block scheduling, two initiatives that he has researched extensively.