Ever since starting kindergarten at 5 years old, Tim Matheney has always had a place inside a school building. But that’s about to change this summer.

In July, the 45-year-old Toledo native will leave his position as principal to nearly 3,000 high school students to become the new director of educator evaluation for the State of New Jersey.

Matheney will lead a statewide initiative for the research and evaluation of teachers in the state. He said New Jersey is one of about a dozen states seriously looking at “educator evaluation reform.”

“We want to build a system of evaluation that accurately reflects how teachers contribute to the education process,” Matheney said. “We want to highlight those teachers who are doing great work and we want to identify those who are not as successful. We then want to identify ways to intervene with less successful teachers to provide better education.”

Matheney recently served on a state advisory committee on teacher evaluation. After a few months of planning the initiative, he was offered the job during the second semester.

Tim Matheney

Matheney called the new initiative “one of the most important education policies in the nation” and said he and his staff will work hard to assist every district in the state.

“This initiative has been moving forward for about a year and we completed a first pilot year this year,” he said. “We had a number of systems implementing new systems of evaluation. A second year of pilots will begin during the 2012-13 year and we hope to learn more from those districts so we can implement a statewide system well into the 2013-14 school year.”

Matheney’s new staff will be in charge of supporting local school districts. He plans to spend 20 percent of his time in local schools with the first visit planned for July, he said.

“I’m going to be involved in a visit to the Newark Public School System in July and I’m sure it’s the first of a number of local district visits over the summer and more importantly in the fall,” he said.

Education through practice

For the past eight years, the St. John’s Jesuit High School alumnus has been the principal of South Brunswick High School in Monmouth Junction, N.J. In his time at the school, Matheney has strived to create “the most ideal environments for academic excellence” through positive reinforcement, extensive research and high standards, he said.

Matheney said he connects his philosophy of high-level academics coupled with high expectations to his days as both a student and a teacher at St. John’s.

“At South Brunswick, we hold high expectations for ourselves and our students,” he said. “That’s connected to my experiences at St. John’s. I believe even though this is a very comprehensive public school, it is very possible to have high expectations for behavior as well as education.”

He also said his parents played a large role in his personal and professional development.

“My father, Dean, was an employee of the Toledo Public Schools system for many years. My mother, Betty, was a reading aide in a Title I program where she worked to help students in learning to read,” he said. “Clearly my parents stressed the value of education in my life. They were great role models in that they dedicated their careers to public service in education.”

High expectations

April Gonzalez, supervisor of English and social studies at South Brunswick, said Matheney’s high expectations motivate the students and administrators.

“He has inspired us to be the best we can be and I say ‘us’ meaning his administrative team, teachers and students,” Gonzalez said. “He has high expectations and I think that is a good thing. He definitely has a way of motivating us to think outside the box.”

Those new ways of thinking have played major roles in the creation of many successful programs like the South Brunswick School Summit, a retreat where all teachers and administrators meet to discuss goals for the year to come, she said.

“Some really unique programs have been developed,” Gonzalez said. “One is called Project Success, a 12-week program from January to March where, at some point during the school day, we take students and they receive extra support for the high school proficiency assessment. It’s a 12-week intense study and practice session in taking the exam.”

Because of the program, students taking the language arts test had a 97 percent passing rate this past year, she said.

Awarding success

As principal of a large school, Matheney said it is very important to not only challenge the students academically, but to challenge them to be the best people they can be. South Brunswick operates under five core values: honesty, kindness, respect, responsibility and service.

In 2011, South Brunswick received a National School of Character Award from the Character Education Partnership out of Washington, D.C.

“We work hard every day to provide a great education for students academically and through building character,” Matheney said. “Outside awards are nice but I care more about the end product of our work and I am very proud of our students. I think they’re well prepared for college and their work in the future.”

Full circle

Matheney graduated from Princeton University in 1989 with a bachelor’s degree in history. While many graduates from the prestigious school often pursue careers in equally prestigious fields like business, medicine or law, Matheney said he was proud to go against the grain.

“When you’re a student at Princeton there are expectations that you pursue a career in business administration or law or something like that,” he said. “To make the decision to become a teacher separates you from the majority of other students who are pursuing more traditional paths of a Princeton graduate. But I was OK with that.”

Matheney currently lives in the Princeton area.

Saying goodbye

Looking back on the past eight years at South Brunswick, Matheney said the one thing he will miss the most will be the relationships he has had with his students.

“Being a principal is full of great moments. Every year has 1,000 moments that are memorable,” he said. “One thing I take great pride in is you can take a walk through my building at any time and you see classroom doors open, teachers teaching and students learning. I’ve had visitors come in and say this feels like a school of 200 students. It is so quiet and so obvious that students are learning every day. I can point to certain awards, but the relationships between students and teachers are the most important things.”

Tags: Betty Matheney, Dean Matheney, New Jersey, St. John's Jesuit High School, Tim Matheney

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 21st, 2012 at 1:56 pm and is filed under Community, Education.
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With a staff of about 300 and a student population greater than 2,800, Timothy Matheney, principal of South Brunswick High School in New Jersey, said he is almost like the CEO of a small company.

“My role is to point the school in the right direction,” he said.

He’s done a good job of it. The school, located in Monmouth Junction, won a National School of Character award this year from the Character Education Partnership based in Washington, D.C.

The National School of Character award recognizes select schools for their “outstanding character development of students,” according to the Character Education Partnership’s website. South Brunswick was one of three high schools in the nation to receive the award.

Described by South Brunswick parent Alicia Cassio as a quiet leader, Matheney, who grew up in Walbridge, has focused the school’s students on five core values of honesty, kindness, respect, responsibility and service.

Great role models

Matheney

Matheney, 44, wasn’t sure he wanted a career in education when he began teaching.

But he had the profession in his blood. His father, Dean, was the assistant principal at Longfellow Elementary and his mother, Bettie, was a reading aide in the Title 1 program at Marshall Elementary.

“I’m an educator today because my parents were great role models for being curious and being avid readers … [and] lifelong learners,” he said.

Matheney attended Princeton University for his bachelor’s degree and seriously considered law school. But he discovered his love for secondary education through his involvement with a model congress. The model was designed to simulate an actual government for high school students.

Upon graduation in 1989, he decided to put off any final decision on a career and in the meantime returned to his alma mater, St. John’s Jesuit as a teacher, with the understanding that he might leave after two years. He stayed for six.

Matheney said puzzled students would often ask him why he would come back to high school and teach after attending Princeton. Because, he would answer, teaching is a fulfilling and noble profession.

“They were six really happy years in my life,” Matheney said.

Outstanding leader

Tom Harms, an English teacher at St. John’s, calls Matheney one of his best students in 34 years.

“I just remember him as such an outstanding leader and editor,” said Harms, who worked with Matheney on the school newspaper as an adviser. “He was just such a great delegator. He lifted people up.”

The national honor didn’t surprise Harms. The same qualities that impressed him while Matheney was a high school editor, he said, have served him well as the leader of a school.

“That’s what makes him so endearing as a person,” Harms said. “He is absolutely respectful, responsible, honest.”

Next level

Matheney left St. John’s in 1995 to earn his master’s degree in education from the University of Michigan. After stops at the University of Minnesota and Prior Lake High School, also in Minnesota, his career came full circle when he arrived at South Brunswick, just a few miles northeast of Princeton.

Gina Welsh, who has worked at South Brunswick for 15 years and is currently the activities coordinator, said Matheney brought with him a more directed zeal for service, honesty and integrity than had previously characterized the school.

“We were always a good school, no doubt about that,” she said. “But I think he brought that next level to our focus. Not only do we want our kids to be smart, but we want them to be good.”

A positive force

Matheney has had support, but he has led the way to success with commitment and a sense of humor.

Welsh remembered him attending a school pep rally dressed as a biker, where the cheerleading squad tossed him in the air.

Matheney, Welsh said, is intense. But, he is also devoted to “celebrating our goodness; celebrating what we do right,” she said.

Cassio agreed.

“He’s not walking through the halls yelling at [students],” she said. “He’s not that kind of disciplinarian principal my generation grew up with.”

Instead, he works as a “positive” force rather than in a “darker, authoritarian overlord way,” she said. “Not that he can be walked all over. [Students] know that the rules are the rules and they will be enforced.”

The award, Matheney said, recognizes years of hard work.

“I could not have done this alone,” he said. “It’s a tribute to literally dozens of people who have helped us become that school of character.”

But that work isn’t done. He plans on holding a large-scale faculty meeting in August to discuss next steps.

“The awards are all well and good. But we need to take stock of where we are today, and where we’re going in the next couple of years.”

Matheney looks forward to being a high school principal for years to come; he’s only 44. Recently, a substitute teacher made his day by looking at him and saying, “You’re the principal? You’re so young!”

But he’s also ready to share some of the things he’s learned with others, particularly other principals. For a school to succeed in promoting character, he said, it has to be deliberate, especially because many core values are attacked in a student’s

everyday life.

“The good news is that if teenagers believe you have credibility, they will listen to you.”

Tags: Community, Education, Graduation, Patrick Timmis, St. John's Jesuit High School, Timothy Matheney

This entry was posted on Monday, May 30th, 2011 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Community, Education.
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