With no involvement in administration, the new math supervisor looks to solve recent challenges and turn Glen Rock into a new math powerhouse. Michelle Della Fortuna started her new job as the math supervisor on June 1st. Before that, she was just a normal high school math teacher.

As the math supervisor, Fortuna sees herself as “the big picture person.” She observes and works with math teachers K-12 to help them improve instruction. All of this is done so Della Fortuna can look at the holistic view of math education in Glen Rock and find ways to make it better.

Mrs. Della Fortuna previously spent eight years at Cranford High School teaching AP Statistics, Honors Algebra 2, and Pre-Calculus. She then moved to Montclair to work at Verona High School.

“Verona had a very similar demographic to Glen Rock,” Della Fortuna said. She taught at Verona for four years where she spent her time teaching mostly math electives.

Glen Rock currently doesn’t offer math electives, but Mrs. Della Fortuna wants to look into it as far as offerings for math courses. A math elective would be a semester course geared towards juniors and seniors that want extra math or a new course rather than  a traditional math course. Classes that would be electives include an introduction to statistics, trigonometry, and a graph theory class.

Coming into a new school system in a brand new role can be tough for a lot of teachers, but Della Fortuna says the Glen Rock community has helped the transition go as smooth as possible.

“The teachers are very much invested in what they do with the students. Everybody is very willing to work with me and  has been very receptive to me. Glen Rock has been a welcoming, close-knit community, which I appreciate” Della Fortuna said.

Mrs. Della Fortuna also has the responsibility of making sure all elementary schools are on the same page. This means that all elementary school math classes will have the same assignments and the same tests. Glen Rock is doing this so students from one school do not have advantages on students taking the same math course from another school once they enter middle school. 

Michelle Della Fortuna is devoted to her job. She is very passionate about what she does and works hard so the students and teachers can have a more positive and successful learning experience.

“I love education and teaching mathematics, so I hope a lot of that gets translated into my relationship with the students and faculty,” Della Fortuna said. “I have dedicated my life to this. Education is not a 9-5 job for me; I really think about it all the time and put my whole heart into it.”