Career educator seeking ways to grow and contemporize education for the district
An educator for nearly four decades, Hazleton, Pa., born-and-raised Larry Mussoline was brought up on the fundamentals: family, faith, hard work, perseverance and pursuit of knowledge.
But while the new superintendent of the Haddonfield School District carries with him the spirit, lessons and traditions of coal country, in his new role, he knows education can no longer be the one-size-fits-all mode he and countless others over the last several generations grew up on.
“My philosophy of education is one steeped in the whole concept of a ‘growth mindset’ … we have to believe that all kids are able to learn and actually achieve at high levels. In the old days, we used to use IQ, and I absolutely think that’s bunk,” Mussoline said.
“We always believed in the fact you can rise above those levels. Yes, there are faster brains and there are slower brains, but that doesn’t mean you’re stuck in a certain area.”
To that end, Mussoline plans to preach the idea of breaking away from old ways of thinking. Using the analogy of a teacher and surgeon from 150 years ago restored to life in the present, he wants to tackle the issues inherent in the teacher recognizing the basic elementary and secondary classroom set up, while the surgeon would be unable to recognize a modern operating room.
“I always say it’s a ‘two-by-four-by-eight-by-180 mentality.’ You don’t need two covers to a book. You don’t need four walls to a classroom. You don’t need eight periods to a day and you don’t need 180 days to learn something. We’re seeing that played out time and time again with cyberlearning and the way colleges are teaching now where everything is online. And yet, in K-12, we’re still stuck.”
Mussoline’s path to the borough has been a long and winding road. After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in secondary education from Bloomsburg University, his first job came as a harried 21-year-old teacher at Bishop Hafey in his native Hazleton. He then moved to another teaching post in the Harrisburg area, later working his way up as an assistant principal and then principal at Central Dauphin High School in Harrisburg. He’d later add a master’s degree in educational administration from Shippensburg University.
Having completed doctoral work at Penn State in 1998, Mussoline assumed the title of superintendent of schools in Pine Grove, a district in Schuylkill County now comprised of just more than 1,500 students. Then, he moved on to helm the Wilson, Pa., district for four years in the mid-2000s.
Immediately prior to his relocation to Haddonfield, he spent eight years in Downingtown, presiding over one of the largest districts in Pennsylvania, more than 13,000 students strong. His accomplishments as superintendent include opening the Downingtown STEM Academy in the 2011–2012 school year and the Marsh Creek Sixth Grade Center in 2014–15.
Two years ago, Mussoline was finally prepared to call it a career. He notified the board he intended to step down once he turned 60, yet didn’t feel like he would have disappeared completely from education. He officially retired in June 2017, but in December received a call from the Haddonfield Board of Education to gauge his interest in the superintendent post.
“At that point, Haddonfield was in a pretty tough situation, a national situation, dealing with the lacrosse team and there was an interim superintendent, but … he could not stay on in the district,” Mussoline related. “So, I was hired back in March, and the board said ‘would you be able to step in?’ and I was happy to do it.”
Given the opportunity to perform what he called a “retooling” rather than full-on retirement, and with the unanimous vote from the board itself, Mussoline decided to press on. The draw of returning to the administrative side of academia was too good to pass up — even as he began his tenure with busy days complicated by geography.
“I didn’t have a place over here in New Jersey yet, so the drive was long. I was coming from the other side of Downingtown to here, which is an hour-and-a-half (one way). So, it wasn’t fun,” Mussoline mused. “But once June came in and I found a place over here, everything worked out pretty well.”
Moving into the school year, Mussoline is most concerned with the impact his work will have on everyone in the district, down to the youngest in the current crop of students. He clings to a strong belief that education now leads to greater rewards in the future.
Mussoline knows because he’s witnessed it year after year as students credit their former teachers as leaving the greatest impressions on their lives. And though his job puts him further away from students as he’d like, he’s banking on his track record and boisterous personality to impact students and teachers by supporting them fully in their work.
“It’s one of the premier jobs in the Philadelphia region, the state of New Jersey and on the eastern seaboard. It’s a beautiful community, and I think they needed some help to recognize that. There’s a continuous improvement need here. I’m a ‘continuous improvement’ guy.”
