The Educator
Thirty-one years in the classroom — a special education teacher who believed every child was worth the work.
Earned at night, between three jobs and a uniform.
In 1970 — while teaching by day, working security by night, and serving in uniform on the weekends — Herman earned his Bachelor of Arts in Special Education, with a minor in Elementary Education, from Jersey City State College, adding graduate credits in Counseling and Vocational Guidance.
He gave thirty-one years as a classroom teacher with the North Hudson Jointure Commission and the Hudson County Schools of Technology, retiring in 2002. Retirement didn’t take: he went right back, serving as a GED Examiner and substitute teacher at the A. Harry Moore School in Jersey City. Across his career he taught the handicapped and served as Academic Instructor, Lead Teacher, and Student Advisor — a lifetime spent on the students other people gave up on.
Graduations he never missed.
His grandchildren remember it plainly: he attended every graduation in the family — distance was never a factor. The educator’s proudest classroom was his own bloodline. The Herman Johnson Family Legacy Foundation exists to keep this lesson going: scholarships and tuition help, awarded in the name of a man who taught for thirty-one years and helped fund scholarships for ten more.
