Sparta teachers nominated for prestigious Princeton honor

By Laurie Gordon
SPARTA — Shannon Psensky and Craig Merrill have been nominated by Sparta High School officials to compete for Princeton University's Distinguished Secondary School Teaching Award.
The Sparta High School Special Education Director Danielle A. Hamblin, Supervisor of Special Education Adrienne Castorina and building Principal Janet Ferraro chose Psensky and Merrill to represent the high school.
Each year since 1959, Princeton University has honored four outstanding New Jersey teachers from public and independent schools at its graduation ceremony for their contributions to the lives of the state's secondary school students and to their school communities. Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous alumnus, each teacher who is selected receives $5,000, and each awardee’s school receives $3,000 for the purchase of library books.
To qualify for this award, exceptional teachers or in this case, a team of co-teachers, must have, according to Princeton's qualifications for the award, “demonstrated highly effective engagement with their students in the teaching and learning process, dedicated service to their school and community, and significant commitment to their own professional growth as lifelong learners. In short, we seek nominees whose work has had an especially important influence on the lives of young people and on the school(s) in which they have taught.”
The qualifications further state, “The nominee’s major activity must be secondary school classroom teaching (grades 7 – 12), and that person must have at least five years of continuous service in the nominating school or school district. The Committee will look, first and foremost, for concrete examples of the effect of the nominee’s teaching on his/her students, and will also look for specific instances of the nominee’s contributions to the school and the community, as well as consider how the nominee’s achievements reflect his/her philosophy of education.”
Both Merrill and Psensky have met these standards. Merrill has been working at Sparta for 15 years and Psensky for 10. They have been nominated as co-teachers for their incredible dedication as a team to their students and the school.
For Merrill, his path to becoming a teacher started with his father being a teacher.
“My father was an educator, and I always wanted to be a teacher since 8th grade,” he said. “I am a lifelong Sussex County resident and a graduate of Kittatinny Regional,.”
Merrill went on to earn his bachelor's degree at Millersville University, Masters in the Art of Teaching (01) at Marygrove College and Masters in American History(13) from American Military University.
“Besides my father who passed away to early to see me teach, Mr Romer my social studies teacher, John Gill(science), Mr Rebolo (geometry) all at Kittatinny were all inspirations to Merrill,” he said. “And my mom and my wife, Beth, who guided me through some tough times to realize my potential.”
He added, “I'm just thrilled to be in the running. Both Shannon and I are active members of the school by being advisers to different groups--Red Cross and Model UN. Both of us lend a hand to DECA (marketing club), and we are always staying after to watch the students play sports.”
Psensky said her road to becoming a Special Education Teacher was a bit “different.”
“I grew up in Hopatcong Borough until my Sophomore year in high school when I moved to Wharton, New Jersey and transferred to Morris Hills High School where I graduated in June 1995,” she said. “I had planned to go to school to be a Lawyer, and decided to attend Ramapo College of New Jersey and major in History with concentration in Pre-Law.”
She said that there were many people in her life who reminded her that Law was not easy and that there were a good deal of attorneys in the NJ/NY area.
“I was urged by family and my high school guidance counselor to look into teaching as an alternative path,” Psensky said. “During college I had taken a part time job as a legal assistant and continued to work toward my degree, however I had also taken on a major in Education. During my Senior year, I had to complete my student teaching. I remember thinking that Law was great, but was it what I wanted. I decided that I would make my final decision after student teaching. I fell in love with the classroom in those 15 weeks. It was my calling, I just did not know it.”
Psensky was prepared to become a Social Studies teacher. However, she quickly learned that the profession was well saturated with Social Study teachers. She did gat a job in that content area, but also learned, “when budgets were cut so were Social Studies teachers.”
She was released from her job within a year.
“With a bit of luck a teacher was going out on maternity leave and I was asked to return to fill that position. During that year, the inclusion of Special Education students in the classroom began becoming the best practice. I had a Special Education teacher in my room to help me with the students placed in the general education setting. This teacher often sat in the back of the room and read the newspaper or just listened, she did very little to help me with the students.”
Psensky took it upon herself to take a basic Special Education class to help meet the needs of the students in her room and understand classifications. She began attending Centenary College to better her teaching for all students. She went on to get her certification in Special Education.
She worked at several schools and when she came to Sparta High School in September of 2007, she said, “I was ready to really make co-teaching the model. And that is what I and Craig have done. We are always looking for the best ways to get the best out of our students in the setting.”
Psensky said her high school guidance counselor, Mr. Niciaero, was an inspiration to her.
“He was the man who told me I was going to go to college. I was the first person in my family to attend college and he was my guiding light through the difficult high school years.”
For Merrill, he said receiving this award would be, “A validation of all of the hard work that Shannon and I do in the classroom. We make a great team and win or lose it is really nice to be acknowledge for the work teachers in general do each day.”
Psensky said, “If I won this award, it would be fantastic. I would love the honor. As teachers we are not always awarded for the hard work and not that I think we always need to be, but it is nice when it happens. Personally, it would remind me I made the right decision to follow this path as an educator.”
Now, for these extremely dedicated teachers, it's a waiting game. The winners will be announced sometime this spring but an exact date has not been revealed.