By John Tredrea, Special Writer
WEST AMWELL — She’s a longtime avid runner who likes to listen to mysteries on her iPod while she runs.
She loves to travel and said Tahiti is a place that really stands out in her memory. “Because of its beauty,” Joanne Calabro said.
A veteran educator whose first job in schools got under way 42 years ago, when she was hired as an elementary school teacher in the Belleville district (where she taught from 1970-1975), Dr. Calabro is nearing the end of the first week of her current job — interim superintendent of the South Regional High School District.
”This is a wonderful school district in a lovely area,” Dr. Calabro said Monday.
Dr. Calabro was superintendent of the Fort Lee district from 2005 to 2008. Prior to that, she was superintendent of the Hackettstown district for four years. Earlier, she held interim superintendent posts in the Alpine and Green Township districts, for one and two years respectively.
Dr. Calabro earned her doctorate in education at Nova University in Miami, Florida, and her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Kean College.
Asked to reflect on the developments in education during the four-plus decades since she started working in the field, Dr. Calabro said: “Things have changed radically, and some of the changes have been excellent. The way we serve special education children is one. Nobody should be singled out the way they used to be.”
She added: “Overall, the type of student we educate has changed quite a bit. Society has changed so much. Students are very technology-oriented, from a very early age. We see more instances of ADHD and autism than we used to, but we’re also more adept at identifying those things than we used to be.”
The central goal of education is “to make sure we’re moving forward,” Dr. Calabro said. “The world is shrinking. It’s a global society. We must prepare our students for that as well as we can.”
Appointed to the interim superintendency at the school board’s July 19 meeting, Dr. Calabro’s term runs to June 30 of next year.
She replaced Nancy Gartenberg, who left South Hunterdon to become superintendent of the Montgomery Township School District in Somerset County.

