A product of Red Bank schools herself, Pat Moss is this year’s teacher of the year at the primary school. (Photos by Jim Willis)

Ask Pat Moss what she enjoys about teaching, and there’s no hesitation on her end.

“I like the fact that I can go to work knowing that I’m going to laugh that day,” says Moss. “Deep belly laughs.”

Another is having a front-row seat on the flowering of her students. They arrive at the Red Bank Primary School in September as four-year-olds — some of whom “can’t say boo,” she says — and leave in June as five-year-olds who “can’t stop talking.”

It’s work that, in a word, she loves. So to be chosen as the school’s teacher of the year is “icing on the cake,” says Moss, who joined the district as a volunteer in 2000 after raising three children, now aged 29 to 23.

Moss with four of this year’s crop of 18 students in her pre-K class.

Moss, who’s the first pre-K teacher at the school to win the honor, is slated to be called out at tonight’s borough council meeting. Also up for recognition tonight is middle school teacher of the year Stacy Curcio.

Moss is a product of the Red Bank schools, having moved here with her family from East Orange as young girl. She grew up at one end of Hudson Avenue; the man who became her husband, Kevin, grew up at the other end, but they didn’t meet until after college (she’s a graduate of what was then called Glassboro State and is now Rowan University). Now they again live on Hudson, midway between their childhood homes, she says.

But while her address has barely changed, her work as a teacher guarantees nothing if not constant variety, Moss says.

“Every day is different,” she says. “When you go to work, the one thing you can be sure of is that it’s not going to be anything like the day before.”

The council meets at 7:30p tonight at borough hall.

Email this story