As Voorhees Township students enter any one of the five school buildings this September to kick off another school year, they will be led by a new administrator who hopes to continue to make learning fun and more interactive for students, in an effort to build off what he says is already a great school district.
Voorhees Township Public Schools Superintendent of Schools David Gentile was announced as the incoming superintendent back in May after the retirement of Raymond Brosel in December and during the midst of interim Superintendent Barry Galasso’s stint in Voorhees, with Gentile starting July 1.
During his ninth year as superintendent at Millville Public Schools this past fall, in his hometown district, Gentile said he was comfortable with where he was and wasn’t looking to move to another district, unless a great situation presented itself.
Coming to Voorhees, Gentile says looking back, was too good of an opportunity to pass up. So what drew him here?
“What didn’t draw me here is a more accurate question,” said Gentile. “Everything about the district is exciting to me; it’s known for its dedication to education and excellence and it’s known for having a supportive community, excellent teachers, excellent staff members.”
At his previous district, Gentile watched over students from Pre-K to 12th grade. In making the move to Voorhees, Gentile says he is looking forward to working specifically with students through the K-8 model.
“I want to make kids excited about learning,” said Gentile. “For me personally, when I went through school, I wasn’t naturally engaged by that traditional approach [of learning] … I needed more activity and hands-on learning, just a different approach. That’s what I want for the kids of Voorhees … I want them to have the options when it come to how they learn best and teach them through an early age how they learn best, to better understand their strengths and the areas they might need to work on.”
Starting as superintendent, Gentile says he plans to take time to visit as many classrooms as possible across the five schools to learn about how teachers teach and learn firsthand what students are doing in the district. He won’t be evaluating teachers, he says, but instead learning how they work to give them “a partner in education” who wants to help in any way possible.
Through his experiences and thoughts over the years in Millville, Gentile says some sample ideas he’s looking forward to implementing in Voorhees include allowing for a wider selection of choice for students when it comes to demonstrating understanding in a particular standard by the state Standards of Education. In this way, students are therefore more interested in what they’re learning about or working on when in school.
“How [the students] demonstrate that, the teacher would give some choices,” said Gentile. “They can create something, write something or act out something, just as an example.”
Additionally, Gentile hopes to encourage students for their work to have a wider, real-world audience moving forward. Their work and efforts can reach out into the community, state, region or world to have a positive impact on other people.
“There’s so many different ways that they can actually do something that has a real impact” said Gentile. “I think then you get kids that will be much more invested in their learning if they know that what they’re doing will have an impact on real people.”
Of course, first, Gentile says his main priority will be to better learn the district and how teachers and students currently interact on a daily basis before he makes such potential changes.
Upcoming for Gentile are two learning sessions titled “The Voice of Voorhees,” on Tuesday, Sept. 3 and Thursday, Sept. 5, at Signal Hill Elementary School and Osage Elementary School, respectively, for an hour at each school.
At each session, Gentile plans to introduce himself to the community and provide residents and parents with an overview of his vision as superintendent, which will be followed by small group discussions to focus on what the community likes about Voorhees Township Public Schools, as well as top priorities that should be addressed.
“As a community, you want to know who the district’s education has been turned over to,” said Gentile. “They’ll hear briefly from me on some of the things that I value, what’s important to me, maybe a little bit about my background, but primarily I want to sit back and hear what people think Voorhees is best known for … and what areas people want to tell that [I] should look at … in an area where it won’t be judged.”
