NJ Legislature honors Bloomfield Tech teacher

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — Bloomfield Tech English literature teacher David Shallcross received a bipartisan accolade from the New Jersey Legislature on Thursday, Jan. 28, for his contribution to education.

“One-hundred and twenty legislators voted for this,” Assemblyman Jon Bramnick, R-21st District, said in a classroom full of students, before a group of school officials.

Assemblyman Ralph Caputo, D-28th District, was on hand representing the other side of the legislative aisle.
“When you achieve what you want in life,” Caputo told the students, “you’ll want to do for others. This is an example.”
Shallcross, who worked 23 years on Wall Street in the bond market, thanked the elected officials. He has been an English literature teacher at Bloomfield Tech for 12 years.

“I think that it is appropriate that the award is bipartisan,” he said. “At Bloomfield Tech, we learn to work together. It’s part of a conscious effort.”

Shallcross said he was grateful for the freedom the school administrators had given him. He also thanked Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo Jr. for his support of technical schools. It was very important, he said, that he and the students both had a safe and comfortable place in which to work.

“I left Wall Street and wanted to do something else,” he told his audience. “It’s not like a job for me here. I hope that feeling gets connected to the classroom.”

It was important for a teacher to treat students as if their own child were in that class, he said, and called teaching an act of conscience.

“I want to do it and it makes me feel good about myself,” he said.
He read from an email he had received from a former student.

“It’s been some time since I graduated, 2013,” he said. “Thank you for taking the time out to help me with the applications for scholarships. I am at St. John’s University, in Queens, and doing very well. I hope all is well with you.”
Caputo was impressed by the email. He said a person could not put a price tag on what was just read.

Questions were taken from the audience. One young woman wanted to know from the assemblymen how college could be made affordable.

“We’ll do our part,” Caputo said. “But you have to break through those walls. It’s a difficult road for anyone coming out of a humble background. But if you want it bad enough, you can do it.”

Bramnick proposed bringing legislators from wealthy districts, where he said concerns are usually about property and estate taxes, to the not-so-wealthy districts where they can hear the concerns of others.