Each year at Shore Regional, one teacher is named Teacher of the Year and one educational service professional is named Educational Service Professional of the Year (ESP). For the 2022-2023 school year, the ESP was Mrs. DeSousa. Mrs. DeSousa has been at Shore Regional for 5 years and before working at Shore, her other teaching experience came from her time as a long-term sub in the Oceanport School District for different grade levels while her three children were students there. However, Mrs. DeSousa did not always work in the field of education. She initially got her BA in Psychology with a minor in Spanish from Georgetown University and after, she received a law degree from Seton Hall University. She then practiced law in the Environmental and Land Use department for a large North Jersey firm until her third child was born. 

Although teaching is very different than law, Mrs. DeSousa didn’t have a huge problem switching over as she comes from a family of educators. Her mom recently retired as a math teacher in Fair Haven, and she has a few other family members who are teachers as well. Mrs. DeSousa first realized that teaching and education would be a great fit for her as she helped her own children with their homework when they had questions and needed help. 

As an educational aide, she loves that she is able to work with different staff members every block and every school year from all different subject areas including math, English, social sciences, science, foreign language, physical education, business, and the arts. With the students, Mrs. DeSousa truly enjoys helping them and finds it so rewarding when she sees a student who was struggling put it all together and start to take ownership of their education.

Over the last 5 years at Shore, Mrs. DeSousa has been nominated for ESP several times and was honored to be chosen as the ESP this year. What continues to inspire Mrs. DeSousa in her position each year is the commitment of the staff to encourage the students to be both good students and good human beings. 

She says, “In the end, we all want them to be hardworking, thoughtful, successful members of our community.”

Congratulations to Mrs. DeSousa for receiving this honor and all of the other ESP nominees.