DiRenzo served as Cherry Hill West’s Student Support Supervisor and became a father figure to many students in the building.
Last Thursday, with extreme cold gripping the region, students and faculty quickly hurried inside the Jones Gym entrance for the start of another school day at Cherry Hill High School West.
Many of these people, however, would slow down and talk to one person, before ducking inside the doors.
For nine years, Cherry Hill West Student Support Supervisor Dan DiRenzo stood outside the Jones Gym entrance to the school, braving the elements to hold the door open for students and greet them with a handshake, hug or maybe just a few kinds words. He was the first face many saw at school each morning and he did his job through sweltering heat, freezing cold, torrential rain and snow.
Last Thursday was DiRenzo’s final day on the job. After years of having a positive impact on many students, DiRenzo retired to spend more time with his four grandchildren and his family.
DiRenzo, 67, has become a very familiar face in the Cherry Hill West community over the past 11 years. He began working at the school in 2008 after retiring from a career with the Cherry Hill Fire Department. DiRenzo first worked as a substitute teacher for a few years before becoming the student support supervisor about nine years ago.
DiRenzo’s job at Cherry Hill West wasn’t his first in the school district. A 1969 graduate of West, DiRenzo holds a degree in secondary education and taught in the early 1980s at Heritage Junior High School, which later closed and then reopened as Rosa International Middle School. One year after DiRenzo began teaching, the school district closed six elementary schools. DiRenzo was one of a number of teachers who lost their job as part of the closures.
DiRenzo would next pursue a firefighting career in Cherry Hill. His career as a full-time firefighter spanned more than 30 years before he retired in 2008. His retirement opened the door for DiRenzo to return to education.
“As soon as I had a shot at getting back to (education), I took it,” he said.
DiRenzo’s job as student support supervisor is listed as a security position, but it goes far beyond just patrolling the hallways. DiRenzo’s position was to interact with the students regularly and get to know them. Building trust was the most important aspect of the job to DiRenzo.
“The most important part of it is to establish rapport with the kids,” he said. “By establishing rapport with the kids, you get to know them better, and by getting to know them better, you can prevent many things from happening ahead of time.”
Cherry Hill West senior Brian Robertson is one of the many students who interacted regularly with DiRenzo. Robertson still recalls DiRenzo being one of the first people he met when he began attending school at West as a freshman.
“He always greets you with a smile,” Robertson said. “You can go to him about anything.”
Robertson said he developed a close friendship with DiRenzo over the past few years. The two talked about a variety of topics, such as how the day is going or about sports. Last year, Robertson began seeing DiRenzo more often in the hallway and the two began to speak more and more.
“I feel like we have a very good friendship,” Robertson said. “It started off freshman year and it just grew from there.”
Walter Graham, a campus police officer at Cherry Hill West, has worked with DiRenzo during his entire tenure and saw firsthand how attached many people in the community were to him.
“The kids gravitate to certain people,” Graham said. “You can see the kids gravitating to Dan. Dan was interested in what they were doing, extracurricular activities and things they were doing in school.”
“Everybody just adored him,” Graham added. “He bled purple, he was the heart and soul.”
Cherry Hill West principal Kwame Morton believes DiRenzo was able to connect with the students because of his “magnetic” personality.
“I think Dan connects so well with all of the kids, and the beauty of it is, upon their arrival, they have the opportunity to interact with him,” Morton said.
To connect with the kids more, DiRenzo went out of his way to read the news to learn about positive things the kids were doing. He would talk to athletes about the big play they made in a game or theater students about an upcoming performance.
“He’s just the most down-to-earth guy you can ever meet,” Robertson said.
DiRenzo would typically be one of the first staff members arriving at Cherry Hill West each morning between 6:15 and 6:30 a.m. and would get the building ready for students and staff.
“I stop up in the main office first and unlock the main office doors so the secretaries can get in,” DiRenzo said. “I bring in the newspapers on the front steps and walk them down to the library. Then I’ll come down to (the Jones Gym entrance) get the time sheets spread out for the teachers to sign in and unlock doors here.”
On some days, DiRenzo would set up his Amazon Echo and play music to kick off the day. He also played an essential role in making sure all of the kids got into the building safely from the parking lot and kept the flow of cars moving from parents dropping off their kids. In nine years on the job, DiRenzo said he never missed a morning of work and had to withstand awful weather at times.
“The torrential rain was the worst,” DiRenzo said. “My feet would get soaked. Sometimes, if they were that bad, I’d go into the men’s room and hold them up to the hand dryer.”
DiRenzo said spending time with his grandchildren was the only reason he’d ever retire from his job. In the days leading up to his final day of work, the West community honored him in a number of ways. For the last edition of Cherry Hill West’s TV newscast, the West Report, the students dedicated the majority of the show to DiRenzo. The episode included numerous students wearing cutouts resembling DiRenzo’s white mustache and clips of previous episodes DiRenzo appeared in.
Last Thursday, on his final day of work, dozens of students, staff and DiRenzo’s family gathered to meet him at the Jones Gym entrance one final time. Morton presented DiRenzo with a plaque honoring his years of service to the school. The school plans to hang the plaque at the Jones Gym entrance near the school’s athletic trophy display.
“That is awesome,” DiRenzo said about the plaque. “That was really moving. To give a plaque is one thing, but to say they’re going to put it on display here, that was terrific.”
Members of the West community believe DiRenzo is more than deserving of the honors because of the impact he had on so many lives at the school.
“I think they’re going to miss his presence, just him being there,” Graham said. “We all know who he is and we all expect him to be there. It’s going to leave a void, because he’s not going to be there.”
“He is a person who invigorates the building with his life, his enthusiasm and with his spirit,” Morton said. “You don’t replace an individual like Dan DiRenzo.”
