Vincent DeRosa

Mr. Vincent DeRosa spent his professional career as a public-school teacher in several New Jersey middle and high schools. An award-winning classroom teacher ("Edna White Rome Prize," 1988, from the New Jersey Classical Association) for excellence in teaching Latin and Classics, he is credited with a number of "firsts" in New Jersey public education. He participated in the inaugural class (1984) of New Jersey's "Alternate Route to Teacher Certification" program and helped make that program the...See more

Mr. Vincent DeRosa spent his professional career as a public-school teacher in several New Jersey middle and high schools. An award-winning classroom teacher ("Edna White Rome Prize," 1988, from the New Jersey Classical Association) for excellence in teaching Latin and Classics, he is credited with a number of "firsts" in New Jersey public education. He participated in the inaugural class (1984) of New Jersey's "Alternate Route to Teacher Certification" program and helped make that program the success it is today. He is also the state's only practicing classroom teacher to start (1997) and operate for 18 years a public Charter School, The Classical Academy Charter School of Clifton (New Jersey), Passaic County's first public charter school. As its singular creative, driving force-motivated by his revolutionary yet commonsense ideas on education reform and dedicated to expending Herculean efforts to implement them-he is responsible not only for founding The Classical Academy Charter School of Clifton but, as its long-time Lead Teacher/Principal (1997-2016), for making it one of New Jersey's most successful, earning in 2008, among other awards, the coveted National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence designation. Mr. DeRosa is also the author of: An Act of War Unresolved: A Teacher Reveals What Is Wrong with New Jersey Public Education and How to Fix It (to be published Winter, 2024). Mr. DeRosa resides with his wife, Magda, in Morris County, New Jersey, and spends his retirement researching and writing in the fields of education and New Jersey history, along with pursuing his landscaping and fly-fishing interests. See less