Page 28 - 40thAnniversaryNJPSA

An Interview with Pat Wright

In 2011, JoAnn Bartoletti announced that after leading the
NJPSA for 20 years, she would be resigning to take on a
new role as Executive Director of the National Association
of Secondary School Principals. After a lengthy search for
new leadership, the executive director hiring committee
recommended and the NJPSA Board of Directors selected
Patricia Wright to serve in the role. Pat Wright had previously
served on the Board of Directors and was the Board President
in 2008-09. A lifelong educator, Pat had held the positions
of teacher, reading specialist, assistant principal, principal,
and superintendent. While leading NJPSA, she served
as a member of the New Jersey Professional Learning
Committee. She also served as the chair of the New Jersey
Anti-Bullying Task Force and co-authored the New Jersey Bar
Foundation’s Anti-Bullying Curriculum. She is the developer What were some of the biggest
of the Connected Action Roadmap (CAR), a comprehensive
and coherent model of school improvement, which has been challenges NJPSA faced? How
endorsed by the Partnership on Collaborative Professional did you handle or overcome these
Learning. For all of her outstanding achievements, Pat
was awarded the prestigious NJASCD Dr. Ernest L. Boyer challenges?
Outstanding Educator Award in 2018.
During my tenure, NJ experienced “School Reform.” How can
We asked Pat to reflect on her tenure as Executive we forget the days when everyone felt they were drowning in
Director of NJPSA and the contributions that she made to a sea of initiatives? Common core, the PARCC assessments,
the organization, to its members, and to the educational teacher and leader evaluation - and the list goes on. The
community:
association met the challenge by providing the resources our
What are the most significant members needed through guidance and professional learning,
while also advocating on several fronts. Members testified at
achievements of your tenure as key legislative hearings and played an active role on many
state committees. Our partnerships with other educational
executive director? organizations allowed us to, whenever possible, advocate with

one voice.
As Executive Director, my primary goals were to increase
membership by providing relevant and meaningful resources The impact of collaboration, both internal and external, was
to our members. The only way this could happen was by certainly evident during the pandemic, the biggest challenge of
forming strong collaborative relationships both within the my tenure. As members tackled the challenges, NJPSA/FEA
organization and outside of the organization. We have built a was also forced to completely change its mode of operation,
true collegial climate at NJPSA/FEA, where every member of while at the same time keeping our focus on meeting member
the staff shares their knowledge, abilities, and innovative ideas needs. NJPSA/FEA was able to build a strong online presence,
to keep us always moving forward in ways that support the continue to deliver high quality timely and targeted professional
needs of our members. Our partnerships with the other major learning, provide much needed guidance, and ensure the
educational organizations, including the NJDOE, have allowed voice and the needs of our members drove our advocacy
us to advocate from a position of strength and influence efforts. I believe the pandemic highlighted just how strong our
decisions that directly impact the work of our school leaders. organization is and how much it truly does benefit not only our
members, but the students they serve.
Partnerships and collaboration led to the development of the NJ
Leadership Academy, the Teacher Leader Certification program, The organization also faced fiscal challenges during the
and the implementation of several state-wide grants. Internal pandemic. But thanks to the collaboration of our financial office
collaboration led to a transformation in how professional learning and our Board, we not only kept our entire staff employed,
is developed and delivered. Engaging our talented members but we actually added staff to meet the growing needs of our
has resulted in the high quality, timely, and relevant learning members.
opportunities for our members and their schools and districts.