The Oxford Township Board of Education and staff and administration at Oxford Central School are proud announce the recognition of several OCS staff members for outstanding work over the school year.

Special education teacher Kimberly Newell has been named Teacher of the Year through the 2016 Governor’s Teacher Recognition Program. Raised by two teachers, she attended Centenary College and has been at OCS since 2001. Newell serves as a co-adviser of the K-Kids service organization, is a member of our Intervention and Referral Services committee and has served as a mentor teacher for a first year teacher.

Newell will be recognized by the Warren County affiliated chapter of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators and the Warren County office of the New Jersey Department of Education at their annual recognition luncheon on June 3 at Hawk Pointe in Washington.

Also receiving recognition this year are Jeanne Kimball, Leslie Nemeth, and Angela Gilberti.  These three staff members have been nominated by their peers and by school administrators as 2016 Exemplary Educators.

Leslie Nemeth, the 2008 OCS Teacher of the Year, has taught art at OCS for more than 15 years.  She has also served as a third grade teacher, Basic Skills Coordinator, and oversees the Advanced Visual Arts program.

Angela Gilberti serves the OCS community as both the Pre-School teacher and the Pre-Kindergarten teacher.  Gilberti joined the staff of OCS six years ago and was one of the staff members responsible for bringing musical theater to the school.

Jeanne Kimball is a fifth grade math and science teacher who also helps oversee the development of technology in the classroom and runs a STEM Club after school.  She was named the OCS Teacher of the Year in 2000. This is the second time she has been recognized as an Exemplary Educator.  She will also be honored by the Board of Education “New Ideas” initiative for her assistance in pioneering the Google Apps for Education program at the school.

Also being recognized by the Board of Education’s “New Ideas” Initiative is Patricia Carr, for her ongoing work to develop the National School of Character program and numerous Character Education Promising Practices awards. Carr is a special education teacher, a yearbook co-adviser, and the adviser to the third and fourth grade Battle of the Books team.

Nominated for the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education Margit Feldman Educator of the Year award, middle school level Social Studies teacher Elena Kantz has been teaching students about the Holocaust and genocide for many years. She has developed genocide awareness activities with her students that exemplify the tenets of the Educator of the Year award and annually helps take the eighth grade class to Washington, DC, to visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Kantz was nominated by Chief School Administrator Robert Magnuson.

All honorees will be recognized by the Oxford Township Board of Education on April 28, 2016 at 7 p.m. in the OCS Library.