Blazewicz ready for role as principal of new Mother Seton Academy
August 24, 2019 at 12:49 a.m.
Though Mother Seton Academy, Howell, may be in its inaugural year, the two women at the helm have logged many years both in the classroom and administrators’ office of schools in the Diocese of Trenton.
The academy, created this year as a merger between the schools of St. Veronica, Howell, and St. Aloysius, Jackson, has adopted a two-person leadership model with Kathleen Blazewicz as principal to serve alongside president Resurrection Sister Cherree Power.
“We blend nicely,” Blazewicz said of her working relationship with the longtime religious. “There’s an open dialogue, and there has to be: We are the first president-principal model in the Diocese in an elementary school setting.”
Blazewicz is ready for that formidable task. She earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education and special education from the University of Delaware, and garnered a master’s degree in administration and leadership, as well as a certificate of eligibility in school business administration, from Georgian Court University, Lakewood.
Joining the faculty of Holy Family School, Lakewood, in 1979, she served there as a classroom teacher, technology coordinator, assistant to the principal, science teacher and coordinator of the middle school grades until the school’s closure in 2015.
That fall, Blazewicz became principal in All Saints Regional Catholic School, Manahawkin. Her accomplishments there include improving the ELEOT scores for AdvanED and achieving certification for All Saints as a 2018 New Jersey Department of Education Future Ready School, one of only two Catholic schools so designated.
Blazewicz also introduced STEM/STREAM programs on each grade level, including an emphasis on robotics for the middle school students. She remained at the helm of the Catholic school until this past June.
As principal in Howell, Blazewicz is tasked to “oversee curriculum and extracurricular activities, be responsible for the daily operations of the school and be the point of contact with students, teachers and parents … to move forward the bold vision of the academy.” Her plans to update technology in the school touch all grade levels and subjects.
“We are going to kick STREAM up a notch, give it a fresh look,” she said. “We will fully use Chromebooks, Google classroom, CoderZ for coding, and attempt to create a team of coders to take to the NJIT [New Jersey Institute of Technology] competition. Future-ready schools and teachers combining lessons in a peer-to-peer atmosphere will allow kids to get ready for the 21st century workplace.”
No matter the technological advances, Blazewicz’s focus is on faith.
“Catholic education is a ministry,” she said, “to give back to the Catholic Church the morals and virtues, to go out and go forth. Science and technology can be of great use for more worldly means, but I can see something in the students’ eyes when we combine them and their faith. Where else can you do that?”
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Though Mother Seton Academy, Howell, may be in its inaugural year, the two women at the helm have logged many years both in the classroom and administrators’ office of schools in the Diocese of Trenton.
The academy, created this year as a merger between the schools of St. Veronica, Howell, and St. Aloysius, Jackson, has adopted a two-person leadership model with Kathleen Blazewicz as principal to serve alongside president Resurrection Sister Cherree Power.
“We blend nicely,” Blazewicz said of her working relationship with the longtime religious. “There’s an open dialogue, and there has to be: We are the first president-principal model in the Diocese in an elementary school setting.”
Blazewicz is ready for that formidable task. She earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education and special education from the University of Delaware, and garnered a master’s degree in administration and leadership, as well as a certificate of eligibility in school business administration, from Georgian Court University, Lakewood.
Joining the faculty of Holy Family School, Lakewood, in 1979, she served there as a classroom teacher, technology coordinator, assistant to the principal, science teacher and coordinator of the middle school grades until the school’s closure in 2015.
That fall, Blazewicz became principal in All Saints Regional Catholic School, Manahawkin. Her accomplishments there include improving the ELEOT scores for AdvanED and achieving certification for All Saints as a 2018 New Jersey Department of Education Future Ready School, one of only two Catholic schools so designated.
Blazewicz also introduced STEM/STREAM programs on each grade level, including an emphasis on robotics for the middle school students. She remained at the helm of the Catholic school until this past June.
As principal in Howell, Blazewicz is tasked to “oversee curriculum and extracurricular activities, be responsible for the daily operations of the school and be the point of contact with students, teachers and parents … to move forward the bold vision of the academy.” Her plans to update technology in the school touch all grade levels and subjects.
“We are going to kick STREAM up a notch, give it a fresh look,” she said. “We will fully use Chromebooks, Google classroom, CoderZ for coding, and attempt to create a team of coders to take to the NJIT [New Jersey Institute of Technology] competition. Future-ready schools and teachers combining lessons in a peer-to-peer atmosphere will allow kids to get ready for the 21st century workplace.”
No matter the technological advances, Blazewicz’s focus is on faith.
“Catholic education is a ministry,” she said, “to give back to the Catholic Church the morals and virtues, to go out and go forth. Science and technology can be of great use for more worldly means, but I can see something in the students’ eyes when we combine them and their faith. Where else can you do that?”