After decades of sculpting young minds, Jay Gilligan and Joann Charwin are set to bid farewell to the Cranbury School at the end of the month.
They are retiring.
Their decisions to retire have been bittersweet.
“I am looking at old year books and thinking about the children. I have gotten emails from students that I have taught from years ago congratulating me it is just nice to look back,” Gilligan said. “So many changes have happened over the years. My first year here, there were about 250 children in the whole school so things have definitely change since then.”
Charwin said she has been very fortunate throughout her career.
“Looking back at my career as a teacher and school counselor, I am very proud of the work I have done. It has been a privilege and an honor to be part of the lives of so many children and families,” she revealed. “I have been very fortunate over my career to work with very caring and knowledgeable professionals.”
Both Gilligan and Charwin have spent decades teaching and counseling students at the Cranbury School.
Gilligan has been a physical education and health leader and teacher at the school for 32 years.
Prior to the Cranbury School, he taught in Linden, where he grew up.
“All of my years of teaching are in physical education. I came to Cranbury after I had found an ad in the paper,” Gilligan said. “There were three or four jobs I had put in for and was accepted for all of them. I chose Cranbury and Cranbury chose me.”
For Gilligan the best part of his career has been the children.
“I have always wanted to be a teacher even since I was in in grammar school and high school. Biology as a subject to teach just was not active enough for me and I needed to be busier. Physical education was just a better fit for me,” he said.
Gilligan lives in Spring Lake Heights. He received his bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University and two masters one from King’s College and the other at The College of New Jersey.
“When I walked through the Cranbury School doors in 1987, our closets for equipment just had mats, about 11 basketballs and some gymnastics equipment. If you look now at our closets, the program is built for every type pf activity you can think of,” he said. “The town has been very supportive of everything we have done. I even introduced dance to the students. The whole program has changed tremendously since I first came and I am proud of that. I am proud of the students too because they have always responded well to everything we did.”
Gilligan said physical education allows students to be social, be active and use their bodies.
“I want the students to have learned from that it is important for their whole life to keep themselves in shape. They have to constantly better themselves, not only be good citizens but good people with others,” he said. “When they get out of here I want them to live long and happy lives. Cranbury School students also have just great intelligence as well.”
What kept Gilligan going for more than three decades has been his excitement for the students and each new school year.
For Charwin it has been a 35-year career overall of teaching and counseling. She arrived at the Cranbury School after her second child.
“I decided I wanted to be closer to home and the Cranbury School was offering a part-time position for a school counselor. This was a perfect fit for me. As the years went on my job at the Cranbury School increased until it became full-time. I love this community. This place has just a wonderful history and people.”
Charwin has had a 22-year career at the school. Prior to the Cranbury School, she was a high school English teacher and a kindergarten through sixth grade counselor in Bridgewater.
“For the first seven years of my career I was a high school English teacher, then for five years I was a school counselor in a K-6 school in Marlboro, and worked for a year in a K-6 school in Bridgewater. After that is when I made the change to Cranbury to be closer to home,” she said.
Charwin’s best part of the job she said was also working with the students.
“Helping them resolve conflicts, to be their listening to them when they were going through a rough spot in their lives, and letting them know their feelings are important has been one the best and most important parts of my job,” she said.
Charwin has always wanted to be a teacher and while she was a teaching high school she knew she enjoyed giving guidance to students.
“I decided to go back to school as I was teaching students in high school to get my certificate in student personnel services so she could be a school counselor. I am really happy that I made that change in my life, because it has been very satisfying helping children in a smaller setting,” she said.
Charwin attended Fairleigh Dickinson University and lives in Cranbury.
Through her two decades at the school she created multiple programs, one of which is a Reading to Therapy Dogs program.
“My husband and I have two therapy dogs we handle, named Scout and Sophia. My husband brought them into the school and I would accompany him,” Charwin said. “The children the have an opportunity to read to the dogs. I have expanded the program to have other therapy dogs come in. To date we have had 10 different therapy dogs participate in the program.”
She also implemented a social, emotional, learning program called SAM (Self-Awareness Management, which teaches students strategies to reduce stress and anxiety.
The retirements of Charwin and Gilligan will go into effect on June 30, but it does not mean they won’t be around the school from time to time.
Each of them have brought experience and energy to their positions at the Cranbury School. Both explaining that the students they have taught have made an impact on their lives and hope that they have done the same for them.