Cherry Hill Superintendent Joe Meloche will be recognized in February in Education Week’s 2018 Leaders to Learn From feature for his role in elevating the voice of students in Cherry Hill.
There’s no part of the job Cherry Hill Public Schools Superintendent Joseph Meloche likes more than interacting with students.
Meloche has made communicating with students a high priority since taking over as superintendent in August 2015. Meloche hosts town hall meetings at the schools, interacts with recent high school graduates and frequently can be seen attending dozens of school events throughout the year.
Meloche’s dedication to communicating with the student body has been recognized. Education Week, a national education newspaper, has recognized Meloche as one of its 2018 “Leaders to Learn From.” Meloche will be featured with other top administrators from across the country in Education Week during February.
“I am really one person that is here,” Meloche said about his role in the district. “I am the lucky one in so many ways to interact with people on so many different levels.”
Meloche has seen the Cherry Hill school district from a variety of perspectives. Meloche grew up in Cherry Hill and began attending school in the district just as his family moved to the township from Detroit in 1977. He attended Kingston Elementary School, Carusi Middle School and Cherry Hill High School West, graduating in 1989.
During this time, Meloche developed a love for school and education. By the time he was a junior at Cherry Hill West, he decided he wanted to pursue a career in education. After high school, Meloche earned his bachelor’s degree at DeSales University and began teaching in the Willingboro School District.
Meloche taught English and history at the middle school level in Willingboro and later in Maple Shade. Originally, Meloche said he never had a desire to go into the administration side of education. However, things began to change while he was teaching in Maple Shade during the mid-1990s, when he decided to go back to school with an eye toward becoming an administrator.
“I thought I had something to offer,” Meloche said. “I wanted to make more of an impact.”
Meloche made the jump to administration in 2000 at the age of 29, serving for one year as Maple Shade School District’s director of curriculum and three years as the principal at Maple Shade’s Steinhauer School.
In September 2003, Meloche would return to Cherry Hill, becoming the principal at Kingston, the first school he attended in Cherry Hill. Meloche’s professional career would end up mirroring his childhood as he went on to serve as principal at the other schools he attended in his youth, Carusi and Cherry Hill West.
Being a principal at all three levels helped Meloche understand the developmental stages of kids in education.
“I loved the experience I had at each of the schools,” he said. “Each of the schools provided me with the opportunity to grow and to learn more about the district and to learn more about the process of children developing.”
Meloche said his favorite part of the job was being able to interact with students on a daily basis. It was something he missed when, in July 2013, Meloche moved to the Malberg Administration Building when he was hired as Cherry Hill’s director of curriculum.
After serving as director of curriculum for a year, Meloche was hired as the district’s assistant superintendent for K-12 for the 2014–15 school year. In March 2015, former superintendent Maureen Reusche announced her resignation effective June 30, 2015. Meloche immediately decided he was interested in applying for the vacant superintendent position.
“It was a rigorous process,” Meloche said. “It was something I spent a couple months preparing for and then interviewing. There was a legitimate pool of candidates.”
The board of education hired Meloche in August 2015. Having experienced education in Cherry Hill as a student, principal and administrator, Meloche realized every voice should be heard when making important decisions in the district. One of his biggest goals as superintendent was to amp up the district’s communication efforts.
“We started becoming even more cognizant with how we were doing with how we communicate,” Meloche said.
One of the ways Meloche opened up new lines of communication was talking directly with the students. In late 2014, Reusche had begun hosting occasional town hall meetings with high school students. Meloche made the meetings a permanent fixture.
“We started with doing the high schools, East and West, we did it twice,” Meloche said. “Then, we expanded it to the Alternative High School and doing it three times at each of them.”
Today, Meloche also holds town hall meetings at the district’s three middle schools and said the students’ input has been very valuable on a number of issues. Recently, Meloche said he’s gotten important feedback from students on all sorts of items, from the use of technology in the classroom to food in the school cafeteria.
“The experience is different and the world is different,” Meloche said about education. “So we have to ask the kids.”
Meloche also communicates regularly with a group of recent high school graduates. These discussions helped in the creation of the district’s new mission statement and also helped the district discover ways it can better prepare students for college.
Meloche’s interactions with the students go beyond meetings. Each month, a different school in the district hangs artwork in Meloche’s office. Meloche invites students who created the artwork and their families one evening to a small reception where he interacts with the students and talks about their work.
Meloche also makes an effort to interact with as many families in Cherry Hill as possible. Meloche understands what it’s like to be a parent in the district, having lived in Cherry Hill with his wife, Ann, and his four daughters. Two of his daughters graduated from the district and two more are still attending school in the district.
“When my parents moved here, it was because of the school,” Meloche said. “When people move here, by and large that is the reason.”
Ahead of the schools district’s planned bond referendum in 2018, Meloche is hosting a Coffee and Conversation series where he visits every school in the district and talks about the district’s future plans. Meloche also reaches out to families in more personal ways.
“Last year, I started doing home visits, meeting with families who are new to Cherry Hill,” Meloche said. “This year, I’m continuing that and I’m going back to visit the same families. I ask them, why did you pick Cherry Hill? What’s your experience been like so far? What can we do better?”
“School should be something we do together,” Meloche added.
Meloche has also promoted the concept of a united Cherry Hill community. During his tenure, the district has promoted a “WE” campaign, with the letter W standing for West and the letter E for East. The idea behind “WE” is to get schools from across the district to collaborate and come together for various programs. Meloche said the two high schools in particular have been working together more in recent years.
“Part of my focus is to try to be one community, that we are one Cherry Hill,” he said.
Meloche looks forward to continue serving as superintendent for years to come and said he was humbled to be featured in Education Week. He is hoping his recognition helps spread the district’s philosophy of listening to everyone’s voice to other districts across the country.
