When the Eastern Camden County Regional School District Board of Education meets for the first time in over a month Wednesday, Aug. 21, Superintendent of Schools Robert Cloutier will lead his first meeting in his new role with the board.
Cloutier was approved as the incoming superintendent earlier this year, assuming his role on Thursday, Aug. 1. Admittedly, Cloutier says superintendent was not a position he aspired to reach years ago. However, under the leadership of former Superintendent Harold Melleby Jr., he came to see the position as possible thanks to tremendous leadership.
“Dr. Melleby is such an amazing person and was a great mentor, being able to support them and help them reach their next level,” said Cloutier. “He certainly had an understanding of when he saw he retirement coming, so for the past two years he took opportunities to support me moving forward.”
Before becoming superintendent, Cloutier served as director of curriculum, instruction and professional development since 2014, focusing on the development of academic programs for students while also coordinating professional workshops for staff. Prior to that role, Cloutier first came to Eastern as a vice principal in 2006.
While he is under a new role, Cloutier says he still looks forward to having a common social aspect of his position.
“I’d say the commonality is working with our teachers, staff, parents and the community to provide the strongest academic programs that we can for our students,” said Cloutier.
Over the past year, Cloutier has also worked with District Advisory, a group consisting of nearly 50 community members that helped evaluate Eastern Regional’s status in the academic realm, from its programs, technology, activities, guidance offerings and more. Moving forward, Cloutier says the experience of meeting with community members to discuss Eastern has helped form a more well-rounded understanding of the school.
“The strength that we have in our academic programs and being involved with the parents, students, community, board members and more, from that perspective, was so critical, I believe,” said Cloutier.
Over the years, different groups have helped organize and create meaningful change at Eastern, such as help from parents that led to the change in the bell schedule in recent years to attempt to solve lateness’s by students.
Cloutier says he has plenty of goals moving forward, with one focusing on increased parent and community involvement to provide administration with different perspectives.
For starters, District Advisory unofficially labeled reaching “Future Ready” status two years ago as a goal, leading to the revising of the school’s mission statement, which allowed for the updating of a technology plan for Eastern Regional.
“That led to the inspiration of thinking that people are really enthusiastic, how do we take this to the next step?” said Cloutier. “The next step was setting the groundwork for setting up a five-year strategic plan, working with District Advisory last year to identify [Eastern’s] strengths and challenges. That led the groundwork for this year’s plan, to develop that five-year strategic plan. My goal is to get it out to the public that we are doing this, and get additional people involved.”
Currently, Cloutier is still in the midst of formulating short-term district goals to be presented to the board at its August meeting.
As it stands, Cloutier says he is prepared to continue to tackle any challenges as superintendent and is excited to continue to be at Eastern Regional so many years later.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity to be here 13 years, going on 14, with all the support I’ve always received, either from Dr. Melleby or the teachers and parents and students,” said Cloutier. “This is a great school district, and I look forward to continuing some great work here.”
