Frank Fusco arrived in Hopewell Valley midway through the 2009-2010 academic year from Springfield Public Schools, where he had served as supervisor of humanities. A former teacher of English and journalism with a reporter’s background, Mr. Fusco has been working with teachers in diverse districts around the state since 2006 as a teacher consultant with the National Writing Project (NWP) at Rutgers University. His demo, Running a Writing Conference, reflects his firm belief in the power of cultivating a student-centered, collaborative and reflective classroom fit for writing growth.
Mr. Fusco began his career at North Plainfield High School, where he complemented his English teaching assignment by advising both the newspaper and yearbook clubs. Prior to that, he had served as a beat reporter for North Jersey Media Group, the parent company of The Record and the Herald News. While the stories he chased varied—from drug busts to mayoral races to profiles of the more colorful characters of Englewood—he heavily favored studying and writing up the big gains of Bergen County students and the stellar teachers behind their work. In fact, Mr. Fusco, a Bergen County native, decided to trade his reporter’s notebook for chalk while covering a poetry and song festival that featured the work of proud teens as well as younger students.
As a teacher, Mr. Fusco has taught high school students of all levels, from at-risk ninth graders to accomplished AP students. He has written curricula for several courses, mentored new teachers, and taught prospective teachers as an adjunct professor at Monmouth University.
As a supervisor in Springfield, a small and successful Union County district, Mr. Fusco oversaw three departments: language arts, social studies and world languages. While there he led K-12 curriculum committees in those three areas, guided teachers as they mapped curricula, and generally, worked closely with teachers as they put newly revised curricula and resources into practice. Now that he is in Hopewell Valley, he is most pleased that he will be able to focus his attention on all things language arts, his specialty area.
As a student, Mr. Fusco studied closely under Dr. Daniel Tanner, an expert on interdisciplinary instructional approaches, while pursuing his master’s degree in education at Rutgers University. It was also on the College Avenue campus that he discovered NWP, a federally funded consulting organization driven by teachers of writing for teachers of writing. He also has a bachelor’s degree in English from Montclair State University, where he met his wife, Christine, shortly after transferring from another institution.
Frank and Christine reside in Bridgewater with their daughter Jocelyn, their dog Falkor, three cats, and a rotating group of foster kittens awaiting permanent homes. The couple volunteers with the Lost Paws Animal Rescue Group.