A student and staff favorite, Mrs. Correa has been working hard in River Dell for 13 years, sharing her positive energy, good advice, and influential ideas all though out the district.
As a young girl, Mrs. Correa wanted to be a lawyer; but she didn’t enjoy the tedium that came along with that job. However, in 9th grade she had a teacher that heavily influenced her interest in education and teaching.
This worked perfectly for Mrs. Correa as she was raised by blue collar parents, who wanted her to have a jobs stability and good unions. Then this is when her career in education all started to take place when she began teaching elementary school students for four years.
She then filled in for Mrs. Ferris while she was on maternity leave here at River Dell high school, until an opening at River Dell middle school occurred giving her the job of a special education English teacher for 7th grade and an in-class support teacher for 8th graders.
Mrs. Correa has also had other similar jobs such as supervisor of special development and special projects and now, her current job: vice principal.
It wasn’t until fall of 2020 that she moved up to administration at River Dell high school. Not only has Mrs. Correa helped students, but she’s also helped many staff members. Mrs. Correa says, “I was very involved in the tech world of education, so I would train teachers regularly on how to use some of our products, which also helped during COVID, because I would conduct training on how to use Microsoft teams as well as other technology to make virtual learning a little easier.”
Mrs. Correa says that she’s benefited River Dell High School by providing countless opportunities like: Silte literacy, Roaming River Dell, and by allowing students to know and project their voice. Mrs. Correa has organized the teen mental health first aid instruction, a mental health awareness class where students can indicate when someone is going through a mental health crisis, and she works with the class advisors for approval on activities like dances and proms, and Saturday restorative seat time.
During her free time to herself, Mrs. Correa enjoys reading, taking walks in the perfect weather, and vintage shopping. Now, not only is Mrs. Correa an amazing friend, coworker, teacher, and vice principal; but she’s also an amazing loving mother to her two children. She uses her time off work to take her daughter to gymnastics, go food shopping, and get things for her house, as well as take her kids to do fun activities like going to the Bergan County Zoo or the Winter Wonderland in Van Sun Park.
Many staff members adore and appreciate all of Mrs. Correas hard work and her lively energy in the building, and here are what a few of her coworkers say about her. Mr. Flannigan says: “She is tough, smart and has helped so many kids. I do lean on her for things, and a lot of times I’ll ask her a lot of questions relying on her best opinion. I know I can go to her, and she can always come to me if she needs help. When it comes to my strengths, she knows what’s best.”
Mr. Pepe says: “I feel like she has the ability to form really good connections with the students and really help a student when they’re struggling by connecting with them one on one to help that student and its really special.”
While her colleagues, Mrs. Ferris and Mrs. Rick, added that, “She really cares about her students and is their school support person. She makes sure that people are taken care of and is always noticing little problems that could be solved with what she thinks is a best solution.”
“Take more risks,” “Fail and be okay with it”, Mrs. Correa advised. “I feel like growing up I didn’t take as many risks as I should have and that I was very scared of failing, but once I learned how to recover from my down points I realized that its okay to have those moments and that everyone else should feel okay with them as well.”
