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Bonnie Cusack, Faculty Member, Edmund V. Cervone Center for Learning

Ms. Bonnie Cusack has decided that, after ten years at The Pennington School, it is time to retire from full-time teaching. Considering that this academic year was also her fiftieth year of teaching—and an impressive half century at that—it’s safe to say that Ms. Cusack is well-deserving!

A proud graduate of Beaver College, now known as Arcadia University, in nearby Glenside, PA, Ms. Cusack holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and elementary education, and also completed graduate work in special education at Kean College and The College of New Jersey. Ms. Cusack also holds numerous teaching certificates, due in part from having taught in Massachusetts, a state that required a separate certificate for each kind of learning difference.

After teaching at the Woods School in Pennsylvania and Haverhill Vocational Technical High School in Massachusetts, Ms. Cusack spent ten years at South Brunswick High School, several years with Mercer County Special Services, and another twenty-two years at Nottingham High School in her hometown of Hamilton, NJ.

Although she considers her work at Pennington’s Cervone Center for Learning the highlight of her career, Ms. Cusack had already accomplished a great deal before joining our School. Involved with dance since the age of three, Ms. Cusack became an accomplished tap dancer who has shared her passion with many students. For fourteen years, Ms. Cusack served as co-director of Pennington Dance, housed in the Pennington Presbyterian Church.

Ms. Cusack also founded the South Brunswick Dance Company, an organization that taught dance to people of all abilities. It was not a coincidence that Ms. Cusack combined her passions for dance and work with students with learning differences. It was her belief that the skills and confidence that students gained by performing transferred into the classroom; on average, her dance participants improved in their academic performance.

Having spent so much time in this area, Ms. Cusack was bound to cross paths with The Pennington School. After completing forty years of teaching, Ms. Cusack reached out to now-retired Pennington School teacher Robbie Uzupis, whom she knew through the Hamilton schools. Upon hearing wonderful things about the Cervone Center for Learning and its work with neurodiverse students, Ms. Cusack reached out to the School and quickly began logging what would become another decade of fine teaching.

And luckily for Pennington Drama, Ms. Cusack was able to continue with her artistic endeavors by contributing her talents to Pennington plays and musicals. She has been instrumental in the design of Pennington’s wonderful costumes. Thinking back about almost twenty shows, Ms. Cusack remembers being particularly pleased with the way both Suessical and Cinderella turned out. She also remembers countless times where she was impressed by the hard work and creativity of many students, who showed that putting in the effort can lead to success.

Ms. Cusack says it has been a pleasure and an honor to work with all her students, especially those who are neurodiverse. She has always enjoyed finding unique and creative pathways that lead to their mastery of concepts. She has loved working with “the best team of learning specialists” and maintains that good teaching for neurodiverse students is simply good teaching for all students. She feels that nothing has been more fulfilling than watching her students grow and to share their journey toward reaching their full potential as they find their passions in life. 

While Ms. Cusack may be retiring from full-time teaching, the teacher and dancer in her will continue on in her next project: traveling to senior citizen centers to teach both standing and chair tap dance.

Those seniors will be lucky to have her just as we’ve been lucky here at Pennington!