For Cathy Cardinale, relationships with the students are everything.
“I’m very close with all of the teachers and staff with whom I work, but I feel like I’m really there for the students,” Cardinale says about her more than 30-year career in education and working with children. Now a paraprofessional in Manchester Twp., Cardinale primarily works one-on-one with students and has built strong relationships with them and their parents.
Growing up in Irvington, Cardinale began working in accounting after graduating from high school. She eventually moved to Indiana where a friend encouraged her to become a teacher’s aide. After 14 years in education, she opened her own business, but she wasn’t happy.
“I like helping and teaching children,” Cardinale says. Something was missing, and after she moved to Toms River to help her father in 2009, she returned to her career in education.
Since 2011, she has worked in Manchester at the elementary, middle and high school levels, forging strong bonds with the students. One student, in particular, stands out. Cardinale began working with him when he was seven years old. Although they didn’t work together every year, Cardinale stayed in touch with his parents and they were paired again at the end of his educational career.
“I think it’s wonderful to build that kind of connection with a student. We aren’t best friends, but we are best para-student,” Cardinale says. “His mother would call me and keep me posted on his advancements, even when we weren’t working together. They would invite me to watch him participate in activities like bowling and flag football. We volunteered together at a local food pantry.”
Cardinale is always careful to maintain appropriate boundaries with students and parents.
“I let the families initiate contact. If they called me, though, I always answer the phone.”
In the summer, Cardinale works as a bus aide, which enables her to interact with the kids. Cardinale loves to connect with the students and help them have a better day.
“A teacher and I have a contest to see how many students will say good morning to us. If I can get a child to smile and say good morning, it’s amazing! We try to make the kids happy. Being in school is not supposed to be miserable.”
Cardinale happily volunteers with the Ocean County Education Association and with Manchester Twp.’s STEM nights. For both, she works with Maura Simister, a technology teacher and the county Public Education Partnership (PEP) chair.
“An educational support professional is the heart of a school, and no one embodies that more than Cathy,” Simister says. “Whether she’s empowering students in the classroom to reach their goals, cheering them on at after-school concerts and games, organizing our hands-on STEM nights or advocating for our community, she consistently goes above and beyond. She is deeply invested in the students’ achievements. We are so proud to see her recognized as the Ocean County ESP of the Year. It is an honor that is deeply deserved.”
Cardinale is the proud mother of three married children, nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild. She is honored and amazed to be the Ocean County ESP of the Year, but she had to be convinced it wasn’t a scam.
“You get so many scam emails,” Cardinale says, “I had to make sure it was real!”