Dr. Michele Gaglione spent many Sundays of her childhood going to Centre Island Beach in Bayville, enjoying the tranquil waters and beautiful scenery with her parents. Little did she know that years later she would begin a long career molding young people from Bayville and Locust Valley and call these north shore communities a home away from home.
After more than 20 years in the Locust Valley Central School District, Dr. Gaglione, affectionately known as “Dr. Gags” by her students, can still be seen supporting her students inside and outside of the classroom as passionately as the day she arrived. She is a popular teacher among middle and high school students and a mainstay at Falcons games and extracurricular events, tracking the official scoring and cheering on her students as they compete on the fields of play.
It’s hard to imagine her as anything other than a teacher today, but Gaglione did not start out in the field. She went to Georgetown and received a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service, a degree designed to prepare students for careers in international relations, diplomacy and global affairs, but she was encouraged to seek out different careers. She started out as a retail buyer in New York City, but after a few years, Gaglione decided to return to what she was passionate about and enrolled in the New York City Teaching Fellows Program. Through the program, she spent two years teaching in high needs districts in South Jamaica, Queens before moving to Connecticut with her husband and teaching at a private school.
A few years later, her husband was exiting the Navy, and she was looking for a new job back on Long Island. She got the call from Locust Valley while on a vacation in Portugal. At the time, she was not aware that Bayville, a huge fixture of her childhood was a part of the district. In 2004, she found a home here again, teaching sixth graders for the next 13 years. Since then, she has taught at each grade level in the middle school and now calls the high school side her home, as she began her first year on the other side of the halls in September.
Gaglione grew up in Farmingdale and was inspired by her social studies teachers’ passion. At an early age, she could tell that these educators were truly enthusiastic about what they taught. Though she had a difficult time in middle school, that experience served as her motivation to find a way to one day be the mentor she did not have during that difficult and transitory period.
“They’re high energy. They have a lot of passion and they’re caught in the middle,” Dr. Gaglione said. “They’re still trying to find their place, but they’re very coachable.”
Gaglione found that the best way to navigate the different backgrounds and dynamics of her middle school students was to find something in common with them and show them that she is not infallible. She maintained an open dialogue with students especially those who might be struggling in her class, asking them about their interests outside of the classroom. When she had built up a rapport with them, they started asking her to come to their games to see them succeeding in different areas of their lives. To their surprise, she actually did start making it out to some of their games.
“To see a kid’s face light up when you are there and they don’t expect you to be, that’s the coolest feeling ever,” Dr. Gaglione said.
It’s this interest and investment in seeing her students at their best that has led to generations of friendships with students and their families.
For years, Gaglione has also overseen an extremely successful Model UN club. These students are already passionate enough to spend hours of their free time after school at the club, but Gaglione has also harnessed their love of arguing and their competitive nature to deepen their appreciation for the materials.
“They really, truly enjoy arguing and then they realize that in order to argue effectively, they have to do research. Because they are competitive, I get them to do research. Once you hook the kids that want to argue and they realize they can’t wing it, then you get the research piece in.”
Some of the most fun Gaglione and her students have had has been at the Model UN conferences that the club frequents throughout Long Island. Last year, the club won eight best delegate awards at the Herricks High School conference. It isn’t all about the honors though, as the team is also known for breaking out a karaoke machine during breaks at conferences and bringing everyone together with their renditions of “Copacabana” and “My Way.”
“It is a wonderful way for them to escape the bubble and understand that there are other kids out there who are like them,” Dr. Gaglione remarked. “All the critical thinking and soft skills that go with it, these are things that you can’t teach discretely in the classroom.”
“I could not contain my excitement. I knew that the kids worked so hard all year, but to see that many kids come back with a gavel was thrilling, Dr. Gaglione said. “When the kids win, you win, too.”
Now in the high school for the first time in Locust Valley, teaching American history to juniors, Dr. Gaglione said she “felt like a new teacher again.” Already familiar with Civil War to present day social studies, she spent the summer relearning the colonial era up to the Civil War again. The transition has been made easier by seeing familiar faces every day, as she taught more than half of her current students when they were in eighth grade. Dr. Gaglione has commended her colleagues for helping her get acquainted to the high school quickly.
“It’s not just going to school that made me a better educator, it’s really learning from all of my students that made me not just a better educator, but a better person,” Dr. Gaglione said. “You think you learn from me, but I learn just as much from you all, so thank you.”