By JACKIE HANUSEY

Staff Writer

LINWOOD – There’s someone new walking the hallways of Mainland Regional High School, but the newest assistant principal hopes to soon become a familiar face.

Mark Marrone, 31, of Absecon started Monday, Dec. 3 after working as director at the Atlantic County Alternative High School.

“I’m going from a school with 100 students to one with 1,700 students,” Marrone said last week, and he said he is up to the challenge. It was earlier in the school year when the administration and the Board of Education decided to add a second assistant principal to split discipline responsibilities because of the size of the school.

He said that at the Alternative High School, he was able to have a close bond with a small population, and although there are more students at Mainland, he hopes to do the same.

“It was very, very rewarding to work with the small population of different students. I not only had direct communication with them but I was able to be a mentor to students and develop relationships,” he said.

That close connection helped the students receive the credits they needed to possibly go back to the traditional high school setting or go out into the community to find jobs.

In that position, he also acted as curriculum supervisor and had disciplinary duties, two responsibilities he also has at MRHS.

He is also overseeing the family and consumer science department, as well as social studies, an area familiar to Marrone.

A graduate of Holy Spirit High School, he taught social studies for 6½ years at Egg Harbor Township High School.

Marrone said that as a teacher and now an administrator, he hopes to empower students to have a voice.

“It’s an opportunity to change people’s lives,” he said.

The assistant principal said social studies it is not just learning about the past.

“History has real-life applications. There are life lessons and problem solving to learn through history.”

He said he decided to pursue education after he went on a mission with his church to teach mathematics to Haitian refugees.

“It was a life-changing experience,” he said. “I was a Sunday school aide, and it got me into education. It motivated me to work with young adults.”

After high school he pursued a degree in historical studies at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and received his teaching certificate in social studies. He has a master’s degree from Seton Hall University in education leadership policy management and is working toward a doctorate in the same discipline.

In his short time at the high school, Marrone said he is already impressed with how receptive the students are to learning.

He hopes to implement more service-learning projects at the school to develop students as global participants who are more prepared for the world in which they live.

Similar projects implanted at the Alternative High School include one this year in which students started building computers for disabled veterans in the county.

“I’m excited to be here,” he said. “I’m meeting lots of new people and building relationships.”

Marrone said he hopes that will continue. He said he welcomes input from parents and that the community will be seeing him not only in the halls but at sports games and plays.