NUTLEY –
The Nutley Board of Education was poised Monday night to appoint a Union County administrator as successor to the departing Superintendent Russell Kazovick.
The new appointee was expected to be Julie Glazer, the current assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction Pre-K to grade 12 for Summit Public Schools where she has served since 2008. Enrollment in Summit schools stands at about 4,000, roughly the same as in Nutley schools.
Her hiring, which had to be initially cleared by the county superintendent of schools, was ultimately greenlighted by the Passaic County schools office after the Essex school chief recused himself due to a conflict, according to Nutley BOE President Charles Kucinski.
Glazer was to be given a five-year contract with an annual salary of $167,500 – a pay level that, according to Kucinski, conforms to state Department of Education guidelines for districts the size of Nutley’s.
“We looked at three years,” Kucinski told The Observer last Friday, “but we felt it takes [a district administrator] two to three years just to get the lay of the land.”
As many as 32 candidates for the district’s top job were pre-screened by a search firm retained by the BOE and that list was narrowed to 16, of whom six were placed on a “short list” and were interviewed by a BOE committee, Kucinski said.
“We graded all of them and while all were exceptional, the committee was unanimous for Dr. Glazer,” he said, because of her extensive education background as a teacher and administrator who has dealt with the referendum process, “which we will soon have on our table.”
“Dr. Glazer is someone well-versed in budgeting, academics and athletics, aside from her enthusiasm for education,” Kucinski said.
According to her professional biography, prepared for the Nutley BOE, in Summit, Glazer was “responsible for direct supervision of all content area supervisors, the Supervisor of Technology, the Supervisor of World Language, ESL and Bilingual Services, eight Basic Skills teachers, three Instructional Facilitators, two Pre-K to 5 Literacy Coaches and PK-5 enrichment teacher. She also collaborates with 12 Principals and Assistant Principals to ensure consistency of operations, programs, budget and policy.”
Glazer has also overseen the Summit district’s Professional Learning Plan, “which has been recognized as a model for Union County and the state” and has served as testing coordinator.
In Summit, she developed such initiatives as STEAM and Science Research, Mandarin for grades 6 to 12, Media Literacy, a Reading and Writing Workshop model for K to 8, Problem-Based Learning and programs aimed at ending achievement gaps such as SNAP, Summer Academy, S-Cubed, Basic Skills Extended Day and expanded services for ELL students.
Glazer was honored by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology and was honored at the White House for her commitment to digital learning.
Before joining Summit, Glazer worked four years for the Orange Public Schools as supervisor of instruction and professional learning for grades Pre-K to 12. There, she implemented small learning communities in grades 6 to 12, block scheduling for the high school, curriculum mapping K to 12 and a data collection system to identify levels of student engagement, curriculum alignment and rigor.
During the balance of her educational career, Glazer has served as School Instructional Facilitator, language arts teacher and classroom teacher.
In 2004, she became a National Board Certified Teacher and one of only 250 teachers to gain such certification in New Jersey.
Before entering the education field, Glazer was president of Mittman Productions, specializing in documentary, educational and public-service programming for such non-profits as the Chicago Board of Education, National PTA and The Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago.
She has a B.A. in Journalism and a certificate in Public Affairs/Public Administration from Indiana University; an M.A. in Fine Arts (with honors) from Columbia College in Chicago and an M.A. in Education (summa cum laude) from DePaul University in Chicago; and a doctorate in Educational Leadership (magna cum laude) from the former St. Peter’s College in Jersey City.
Glazer is an executive board member of Learning Forward NJ and serves on the board of Shaping Summit Together.
