Our Morris Hills community is growing this year as we welcome 15 new staff members to the Scarlet Knights family. From secretaries to security officers and various teachers for different subjects, they all help Morris Hills be the wonderful school it is today. To all our new staff members… Welcome to your Morris Hills family!
Mrs. Hartsuiker is our lovely secretary for the general office and Supervisor of Social Studies. She was previously located at Knolls but an opportunity opened up here at Morris Hills. Longing to be a part of the Hills community, she happily applied for the job. Working here, Mrs. Hartsuiker has found that she loves the family community that the staff and students create. Her favorite part about being a secretary is helping students and staff and getting to know more of the students here. Mrs. Hartsuiker is the mom of Jack, who graduated this past school year, and Ryan (current junior). The Hartsuikers are a baseball family, so Mrs. Hartsuiker is a die-hard baseball fan with her favorite team being the Jets.
Ms. Grignon is our wonderful Library Secretary here at Morris Hills. Before working at Hills, she worked at Knolls in the Child Study Team Office. Ms. Grignon explained that “she always heard Morris Hills was a great place” and loved how welcoming and friendly everyone was. As the library secretary, Ms. Grignon is responsible for supporting the librarian and Media Specialist, overseeing the students coming in and out, keeping them under control, helping with orders that must be made, overseeing the programs available for students and teachers, and keeping the library a quiet and enjoyable place. Ms. Grignon is the reason why we can enjoy the library. In the upcoming fall and winter months, she will continue her talent of baking cookies and engage in the excitement of watching football games.
Ms. Milovic is one of our lovely guidance counselors here at Morris Hills. Ironically, she is a former Morris Hills student and was very involved in the arts of musicals, plays, and choir when she was in high school. After graduating from Rowan University, Ms. Milovic is excited to be back in the Hills community, this time working alongside teachers she once had. She enjoys the sense of “family” that she gets working at a school she once attended. As a guidance counselor, Ms. Milovic strives to help students, as she was in their shoes not too long ago. Her favorite part about being a guidance counselor is meeting and connecting with students on a more personal level as she gets to know them outside of their classes. Ms. Milovic is very happy to be back in her hometown and is looking forward to getting to know, work with, and help all the students she meets.
Mrs. Chirico is a teacher of chemistry, forensic science, and environmental science here at Hills. Upon graduating from Hills in 2012, she went to college where the head of the chemistry department later offered her a program. This program was designed for people with chemistry careers who wanted to teach. This one-year program paid for her master’s degree. Mrs. Chirico’s favorite subject to teach is chemistry because it’s a perfect balance between the content-heaviness of biology and math-saturated physics. “Chemistry is a balance of both which makes it more fun.” Something most people don’t know about Mrs. Chirico is that before she had her daughter, she was actually a head boys basketball coach!
Ms. Roy is a Biology and Environmental Science teacher here at Morris Hills. She had amazing science teachers throughout elementary and middle school. Ms. Roy explained that her middle school environmental science teacher was so engaging, as the class gardened and composted, and the teacher even brought in chickens! She enjoys the outdoors herself, embracing nature in her love for hiking. Her teachers contributed to fueling her passion for science. She went to college for environmental science and obtained a teacher’s assistant position where she could combine her love for science with teaching. Coming to Morris Hills, she admires that respect is such a priority! Just like her middle school science teacher, Ms. Roy loves taking her students outside for class. Outside of school, Ms. Roy loves to create pressed flower art and embrace her love of dancing.
Ms. Sawicki loves her teaching experience at Morris Hills explaining how the kind, respectful students and staff have created a wonderful school community for her. Before coming here, she was a utility teacher where she would teach in many different classrooms, never really having one of her own. Coming to Morris Hills, Ms. Sawicki was happy to finally have her own classroom in the Academy Building where she teaches Intro to Woods, Intro to Graphic Communications, Robotics 1, and Computed-Aided Design 1 and 2. She loves all the courses she teaches, but her favorite is Robotics because it is more hands-on: students deal with all the mechanisms and designs, and it’s much more interactive. Another aspect of the class that she loves is that even though she knows a lot, her students teach her new things as they experiment and develop new ideas. Outside of school, Ms. Sawicki loves to go hiking with her family. An interesting fact about her is that she has a second degree in industrial design, so she always reminds and encourages her students to remember that “It’s never too late to reinvent yourself.”
Mr. Gust is an AP Psychology and World History teacher at Morris Hills. His favorite class to teach is AP Psychology because he finds it intriguing how the human nervous system responds to outside stimuli which results in our feelings, emotions, and actions. When Mr. Gust was a senior in high school, he was undecided and went to CCM to discover what he wanted to do. There, he would tutor people in math and a teacher acknowledged how great he was at explaining things to people. This sparked a realization that he could teach what he loved: psychology! Coming to Morris Hills has been a wonderful experience for Mr. Gust, as he enjoys the close-knit community and the great friendships he created with fellow teachers. One thing you might not know about him is that he loves pizza. In his spare time, he enjoys trying out different pizza places around the state, his favorite being DeLucia’s Brick Oven Pizza in Raritan, NJ. Mr. Gust has also been to M&S II, the most popular place to eat near Morris Hills with his favorite being the Buffalo Pizza.
Mr. Jimenez is one of our ESL teachers. He helps support multilingual students with their normal classes. He notes that he is a “push-in teacher;” who supports those students in various subjects like History and Science. Mr. Jimenez loves that he gets to teach the English language to students and help them in their regular classes as he was once in their shoes. He was an ESL student, and now he gets to live it out and help others. Coming to Morris Hills, he admired how mature the students were and appreciated all the support the school offered new teachers like him. After being in the school for a few weeks, he understands why “everyone loves the school.” Outside of his teaching, Mr. Jimenez is a “huge soccer fan” and enjoys watching, playing, and coaching the sport. In his free time, Mr. Jimenez enjoys live music and playing percussion.
Mr. Limon is one of the business teachers here. In college, he thought he wanted to be a professor, but his vision didn’t line up with the reality of that job. Craving to teach content, create a fun and academic class setting, and help students succeed, he became a teacher. He teaches Personal Finance, Social Media Marketing, and Business and Personal Law. While he enjoys all the classes he teaches, Business and Personal Law is his favorite because of the “interactivity and engagement” of the class as well as the real-world applications that can be made. Teaching at Morris Hills, his favorite part is how supported he is as a new teacher highlighting the sense of community from the supportive staff to the welcoming students. Outside of school, Mr. Limon enjoys collecting license plates, participates in 13 fantasy football leagues, and is actually a volunteer firefighter! Thanks for what you do for our school and the community.
Mr. Peralta is one of the Spanish 1 and Spanish 2 teachers at Hills. His favorite thing about being a teacher, especially a language teacher, is seeing students grow in their language skills. The most rewarding part of the job is helping them be able to use the language in the real world and seeing how their Spanish is improving. Mr. Peralta described a “sense of home” in Morris Hills, with the students and staff being so welcoming. Before teaching, Mr. Peralta served in the Marines from 2001 to 2007. Being in the military helped him ease into education, as having that experience boosted his confidence, allowing him to engage his students and communicate with them. Thank you for your service, Mr. Peralta!
Ms. Stroud is an energetic, fun teacher of Investment Strategies, Personal Finance, and College Accounting I Honors. With her mom working in education, she was inspired to combine her love for business and finance with her love for helping people learn and grow by becoming a teacher. “Helping students learn and grow feels so rewarding,” she said. Her favorite subject to teach is Investment Strategies, as she wants to share that wisdom and knowledge with students as it can help change their lives. Coming to Morris Hills from Knolls, she loves the students and how respectful and engaged they are. In her free time, she loves to write, and she’s actually in the process of writing a book that will hopefully be published in the future.
Mrs. Cordero is an English teacher who teaches English 10 Honors and AP Literature. Her favorite part about her job is connecting with her students, getting to know them, and learning about their interests. Mrs. Cordero has known she wanted to be a teacher since she was in elementary school. Throughout her life, she had many influential and impactful teachers, and she wanted to be like them. Teaching at Morris Hills, she has admired the school spirit that is evident in the students and staff as they take great pride in the school and the teachers love to come to work every day. Outside of school, Mrs. Cordero is a huge sports fan; she loves watching sports and is a huge fan of the Yankees, Devils, and Jets.
Mr. Dillon is a freshman-year Health and Physical Education teacher. Of the two, his favorite is Physical Education as it was “always my favorite class as a child.” Having a strong passion for basketball, Mr. Dillon has been the Head Varsity Girls Coach at Morris Hills for eight years now. Loving sports and competition, he got into coaching at a young age and “enjoyed watching the growth of my players on and off the basketball court, teaching them skills and watching them get better at it so it really pushed me to become a teacher.” Now being a teacher at Hills, his favorite part is the people. He enjoys day-to-day interactions with the students and “building a strong rapport with them.” It’s not always about PE or Health; it’s more about building comfort and trust between him and his students, from sharing how their day has been to heart-to-heart conversations.
Well, there you have it! I hope you enjoyed learning more about our new staff members. They are such wonderful people so if you see them around, be sure to say hello! Thank you to all our new staff members, we are truly happy to welcome you to the Morris Hills community and are so grateful for all that you do.