Damiso Josey assistant principal at sooy elementary
Wednesday, January 9, 2019 • The Hammonton Gazette • Page 3
JOseY, from Page 1
as an operations manager for ABC
in New York City.
After the attacks of September
11, 2001, Josey decided to move
out of New York City. Shortly
thereafter, he received a phone
call from a former administrator at
his high school, who was superin-
tendent of the Hammonton School
District at the time. He asked
Josey if he would be willing to de-
velop the curriculum of a new TV
Media program that was being in-
troduced at HHS.
Blending his experience in tel-
evision with his knack for teach-
ing and mentoring, Josey decided
to take a new path in his career.
“I believe everyone has a gift in
them, and in that gift is something
that you kind of do and it comes
easy to you; it’s not forced. So,
what I found in TV is through vol-
unteering and substituting and
mentoring kids—that just came
easy to me … So, I went on that
road,” Josey said.
During his tenure as HHS’s TV
Media teacher, Josey helped de-
velop what became one of the
school’s most popular elective
courses. He also became widely
revered by the students he taught,
which spurred his desire to posi-
tively affect students on a wider
scale.
“I found out that it was more
about teaching life skills than
teaching TV Media. When I found
that students were coming to me
during their lunch—during any
time that they can—just to have
conversations with me, I started
thinking I needed to impact more
than just the 100 or so kids that I
saw every year,” Josey said.
Josey went on to get his mas-
ter’s degree and left HHS to pur-
sue career opportunities in school
administration. After a series of
interviews that included his for-
mer school district, he was hired
as the assistant principal at Alder
Avenue Middle School (AAMS)
in Egg Harbor Twp. in 2013.
Josey said his time at AAMS was
a key learning experience that
gave him valuable perspective in
regards to student behavior.
“I’m very appreciative of it be-
cause I learned so much with
them, just about child develop-
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ment. By teaching at the high
school, I was able to see where it
kind of started from—the attitudes
and the behaviors and the things
of that nature. I kind of wanted to
just learn how to cut it off before
it became a problem at the high
school,” Josey said.
Josey spent five years at AAHS
before deciding to move on to the
next stage of his career. His next
interview circuit once again in-
cluded a stop in Hammonton in
the summer of 2018, only this
time, it was a successful one.
“It was a blessing to be able to
come back here … I just feel like
I can breathe again, coming back
to a community I know … It’s re-
freshing to be back in a familiar
space working with people that
I’ve worked with before and I
know are great educators because
I worked alongside them,” Josey
said.
Now assistant principal at
WES, Josey is dedicated to using
his managerial skills from his ca-
reer in television production plus
his passion for helping students in
order to become the best assistant
principal he can be.
“Everything that I do, every de-
cision I make, is for what I believe
is the best interest of the student.
And that means building relation-
ships with the students, building
relationships with the community,
being accessible to them and
Damiso Josey
wanting them to be able to talk to
me about anything and helping
them to solve problems; that’s re-
ally my main reason for being in
the position that I’m in ... What
I’ve learned is that as a manager,
you’re goal, one: is to solve prob-
lems all day long, but two: is you
have to figure out how to put peo-
ple in positions to make them suc-
cessful,” Josey said.
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