Hello My Name is: Susan Bivona

…and I am your new NAEA Monthly Mentor Blogger!  Over the next few weeks I hope to share some of my experiences with you and offer advice, suggestions and ideas. For this first post, I would like to tell you a few things about myself beyond my bio so you know where I am coming from and so you can put things I say into perspective!

I am a proud graduate of Kutztown University in Kutztown, PA where I had the amazing opportunity to have both Dr. Marilyn Stewart and Dr. Eldon Katter as my professors; Dr. Katter is a Past-President of NAEA.  I have been employed as an art teacher since I graduated and like many others I started part-time.  First lesson, if you are looking for a job as an art teacher, take the part-time job, you never know where it may lead.  At one point I was teaching part-time in three different school districts.  Now that was CRAZY!  One school district on Monday & Tuesday, a different school district Wednesday morning then I drove to a different school district Wednesday afternoon.  Thursday was back to the Monday/Tuesday school and on Friday I was back to the Wednesday afternoon school, are you tired yet?  That went on for 3 years! Then it happened, the Wednesday/Friday school was opening a new school and I was selected to be the art teacher for the new school ~ full time!  A few years later I left that school to go to Mount Prospect Elementary School, where I am currently teaching.  Although I did have student teaching experience K – 12, I have only ever taught K – 8 and most of my career has been with students in grades K- 5th ~ I love it.  It is the perfect place for me!

Mount Prospect is located in Basking Ridge, NJ close to the center of the state not too far from Rutgers University.  While this school is a NJ public school it is almost an international school with students speaking over 30 languages at home. We have students from all over the globe!  Many of the parents of my students are scientists who work for pharmaceuticals companies in central New Jersey or commute to New York City.  My students come to school ready to learn.  For those of you who are struggling teaching “Art on the Cart”, I have done that too.  In fact, when I made the change from my last school to Mount Prospect, I left a beautiful room behind to actually teach “Art on a Cart”.  I think I will save the details of that move for another post.  For the most part Basking Ridge is an old community steeped in history from the Revolutionary War.  There is a small town center with a church and a green and lots of beautiful old homes and farms with lots of personality.  The section Basking Ridge that I teach in is called the Hills, a planned community in NJ.  There is a town center here as well with a dry cleaner, a Dunkin Donuts and a real estate office surrounded by condos, townhouses, new homes and a new(ish) school, that would be Mount Prospect.  The school was built 10 years ago to provide a community school for the children living in the Hills.  The school was built with 4 classrooms for each grade K-5.  Two years after the school was built it was over-flowing with students and the art room was lost.  Exit the original art teacher – enter me!  I had taught “Art on a Cart’ and I knew I could handle it, how long could they keep me on the cart anyway?  Not that long (I thought)!!!  Six years plus a 12-room addition to Mount Prospect and I finally got the Art Room.  So, this is just my second year in the past 8 that I have taught art in a room.  We are a large school with over 700 students and I cannot fit them all into my schedule so there is a part-time art teacher, Mrs. Stephanie Moench that teaches Wednesday & Friday mornings.  Thank goodness for Stephanie.  Of course, it is hard to keep someone in that part-time position (teachers are always moving on to full-time jobs) so I have had the opportunity to work with and mentor some amazing new teachers.

At home, I spend my time with Patrick, my husband and Winnie & Jigsaw, two Portuguese Water Dogs (yes, one of the dogs the Obama’s are considering).