By: Eileen Catalano, History/English Teacher

We are proud to announce that Mr. Corbett has received the 2017 Governor’s Award in Arts Education for his dedication to arts education at Ocean Academy.

The Governor’s Award in Arts Education began in 1980 to promote awareness and appreciation of the arts, recognizing creativity, talent and leadership of the award winners.  Each year, awards are presented to approximately 100 educators and students from the state of New Jersey.  Education leaders are nominated for the Governor’s Award for their exceptional commitment and contribution to arts education.

Mr. Corbett is well deserving of the Outstanding Administrator Award

Mr. Corbett’s strong and insightful leadership provided pertinent resources for the success of the Arts-Infused Instruction.  Some of these resources supported the success of effective scheduling, curriculum development, professional development, and publishing these experiences in order to share with others.  For example, he maneuvered the staff and student schedules to allow the opportunity to have a weekly arts-infused lesson across every subject area and the time for the staff to collaborate and plan for it.  In addition, he provided the resources necessary for teachers to formally collaborate monthly to create trans-disciplinary, thematic based curriculum that included National Art standards in addition to the New Jersey Student Learning Standards.  Students are now able to conquer some of the difficult conceptual understandings of core subjects by experiencing their learning through the infusion of the arts.

Mr. Corbett recognizes the importance of sharing these experiences with other professionals and the community to demonstrate what is possible when strong leadership, collaborative teams, committed staff, and amazing children with special needs work together to use arts infusion to achieve success

Mr. Corbett is able to claim success based on the real-time data he has been collecting to monitor student behavior in the many facets of school success.  He uses this real-time data to keep track of each student’s needs throughout the day, to have conversations with the students whereby they can set goals for themselves as needed, and to look at the effect of arts-infused pedagogy on student behavior.  This is what sets Mr. Scott Corbett apart from any other administrator.  He understands that assessment is integral in today’s educational landscape and must be a part of any new initiative to inform the iterative process toward successful implementation.