Schools

After 41 Years, Porco Will Retire

Longtime teacher and administrator Eugene Porco announced 2011 will be his last in the district.

Two longtime principals in the Cinnaminson School District recently announced their plans to retire at the end of this school year. Cinnaminson Patch spoke with both Gay Moceri, principal at the middle school, and Eugene Porco, principal at Eleanor Rush Intermediate School.

In 1971, Eugene Porco started his student teaching at Eleanor Rush School. Nearly 41 years later, he’ll at the same school.

“Did I envision myself to be here for 41 years?” Porco said. “No, but I really took a vested interest in the district and want to see it succeed.”

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Porco announced his retirement last week, effective at the end of the school year.

He started out as a fifth-grade teacher at , and then moved over to teach at . From there, he taught middle school language arts, and then moved over to basic skills. In 1993, he was the acting principal at Rush and officially became principal Feb. 15, 1994.

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But many of his fondest memories come from his time as a teacher. Porco’s Postal Service was a program Porco started to teach students about the mail system, specifically how to write and address cards. Math was incorporated into the lesson, Porco said, because the students would tally up mail received by the classrooms.

His classes even took field trips to the post office.

“It was a fun activity for kids to do in language arts, math and science, plus it involved the entire school in this endeavor,” Porco said.

The longtime teacher and administrator was also a pioneer, having started student-read morning announcements at Rush in 1976. He even pushed for television monitors for each classroom and a closed-circuit station is set up at the school.

Porco also pushed for the fifth-grade daylong camp trip to be two nights and three days. And, he also called for a day trip for the fourth-graders, to get exposure to the camp before the next year.

“I am very proud of being able to do that,” Porco said, also giving credit to the superintendent and school board.

Porco, in an effort to get his students more involved, started giving our “Porclidian Achievement Awards” for math.

“Some struggling students would come out with the best answers,” he said, “and I’d give them awards, and later, pens. Former students still have the pens. It makes you feel good, but it saddens me a little bit, too.”

Porco likes keeping in touch with former students and he said one of his proudest achievements is hiring teachers that went through Cinnaminson schools, and even ones he taught.

“That’s a great feeling,” Porco said.

Also, in 2001, Porco was an integral piece in reconfiguring the district. In the 1990s, Rush and New Albany were two separate elementary schools. In 2001, New Albany became home to kindergarten through second-graders while Rush became an intermediate school for grades three, four and five.

“The kids were great,” he said. “The families have been very supportive of education.”

Porco hopes to stay in education but first, hopes to travel with his wife, who he met when she was hired in the ’70s to teach at Rush. He’d like to do some consulting for student-teachers at the college-level.

“I figured, this is about the right time to do it,” Porco said. “Might as well do it while you’re still feeling well. I thought I’d move on and let some other person come over and continue moving the district ahead.”

But, Porco will miss his staff, and especially, his students.

“I’m going to really miss the kids and some of the things they say, the things that pop out of their mouths, “ he said. “Just interacting with the kids, walking down the hall, stopping a student to see how he or she is doing.

“I really appreciate and extend my appreciation to current and past school board members. They are very supportive of the schools and me,” he said.


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