With the new beginning of the 2024-2025 school year at Roxbury High School, there’s always new faces, new brightest smiles, new students, and especially new staff. With the new staff members who will be joining the Roxbury district, each and every one of them brings unique skills and experiences that will enrich our community–making this year a memorable one with their valuable contributions and fresh perspectives.
One of our new staff members this school year is Ms. Morano. She is a family consumer teacher and also teaches culinary I and II. This is her first year teaching in the Roxbury district. She’s off to a great start and enjoying the school year already! Ms.Morano is from Lebanon Township, New Jersey. She takes a 40-minute drive every morning to Roxbury and quotes, “It’s definitely worth the drive there and back”.
Ms.Morano graduated from Voorhees High School back in 2018. Some hobbies about Ms.Morano that she likes to do are cooking, baking, pattern making, and sewing when she has the time. Ms. Morano likes to make tiramisu and likes to use half chicken eggs and half duck eggs, and just enjoys going all out. Her second go-to recipe is a “dutch baby” or an “oven pancake”. An oven pancake is her go-to breakfast when she doesn’t feel like cooking. She went to college for fashion design and merchandising. Fun fact about Ms.Morano, she is allergic to gluten and dairy. She does recipe developments with her students. Lastly, Ms. Morano likes to read but wishes she has had more time to do so. She says, “When I was substitute teaching, I felt like I had so much more time and I was reading a book a week. Whenever it was testing week. I love reading but I don’t have a ton of time for it. But, I gravitate more towards historical fiction.”
I also had some questions for Ms.Morano, how she is with a whole new district and how everything is recently developing for her. When asked, “Was coming to the Roxbury district a little overwhelming or made you feel nervous?” She replied, “I was a little bit nervous because everything was new, far from home, just different. New staff, new people, new students, and new layouts. Getting to know the structure and trying to vibe with the space. It took a little while to sink in. But, it’s setting in now and feels comfortable and much better.” Ms.Morano is adjusting to everything being very new to her as she tries to navigate through the Roxbury halls. Next, “How are you coping with a new school and with new students?” Ms.Morano quotes, “Pretty well. It is new for me to have my own classroom and my own students to be able to teach. I have 132 students. I got their names memorized and what their personality is like, what they enjoy, and just overall trying to get to know them. But, I’m definitely settling in a lot more which is great because I can go to anybody in the school and ask as many questions as I need and everybody is there to help so I feel like I don’t have to navigate on my own.” It’s great to see Ms.Morano getting to know her students very well and just being an overall positive and amazing teacher for culinary arts/family consumer teacher. The next question I had for her, “How long have you been teaching for?” To this, she replied: “My own room, my own kids, and my own lesson plan. It’s my very first year teaching. I was previously long-term subbing at my high school doing culinary arts actually alongside the teacher I had for culinary arts which is kind of crazy. It made me realize how much I loved this because it was either between going to school for fashion or culinary school. But, I ended up going to school for fashion. It was like my big two and so I’m just glad to come back into the industry and it’s just a lot of fun,” Ms. Morano replied.
It’s pretty wild to teach alongside the same teacher you had in high school, but now Ms. Morano is in a much different position. Although it is Ms.Morano’s first year teaching, she did have experience as a substitute teacher. “This is like my second year teaching but it was pretty fun. I would say this year probably compares a little bit differently than the past just because like it’s more on me as suppose like coming in when other things are set up so it’s nice to just walk in and set things up, set rules, put posters up, decorating, and just organizing in a certain way which is really good but I would say my biggest thing when starting to teach was comparing my experience as a student to comparing myself as a teacher and like being an adult in a school is so different and like not all of what I expected. Just being a student and curious about what the teacher lounge was and what the meetings were like and now it’s like you’re at that point and it’s just way different than you expected it to be.” Lastly, “What goals do you have for yourself and for Roxbury?” Ms.Morano responded with, “Specifically with Roxbury, figure out where everything is in the school. I would say continue like refining my lesson plans I would love to like put in all the extra work now to have a really good base to work off of in the future. And then like higher education going for my masters specializing in special education and potentially going for another Masters and just kind of seeing where where it takes me. For my personal goal would just be finding time for my hobbies. At the moment I think I’m balancing it all pretty well but I would love to be able to fit in like a little bit more creativity and personal time as opposed to just in class.”
I thank Ms.Morano, for sharing her insights and experiences with me. Looking forward to seeing the positive impact she’ll have on our school community and district. Her commitment as a Family Consumer and Culinary Arts teacher will be truly inspiring. Overall, each year every new staff member always leaves a good impression on our students in Roxbury and we love to continue seeing it happen every time!
