Keeping track of 24 students can be a juggling act; however, keeping track of 2,077 students is the whole circus.

Michael Elkin recently took a new role as NHS’s Activities Director. Discovering a brand new world for himself because he now leads 26 varsity sports and over 52 clubs as detailed on the N.J.S.D. school page, creating countless opportunities to provide insight and knowledge to the student body.

Shortly after being hired Elkin looks around his shiny new office thinking of all the great ways to improve NHS athletics and activities. He eventually realizes that NHS athletics and activities have crafted “silos” building barriers between each group and diminishing the pride of NHS. Once Elkin pinpoints the problem, he jumps quickly into action embedding a personal goal – uniting all NHS athletics and activities — to bring all students together as a whole — because the many are better than the few.

“This school has a lot of amazing energy and amazing people.  But getting everybody moving in the right direction will make that energy translate onto the stage or field.” 

Now with the school year underway, Elkin is thriving in his new role and standing by his promise of improving and uniting NHS. First, he makes a major impact on NHS athletics taking the lead on the new video boards. Eventually, Elkin establishes an overall understanding of their function and significantly improves the atmosphere of all sporting events. At the same time, Elkin is moving forward with his plan to crush the silos by encouraging and showing support for all activities at NHS mainly through his Twitter page.

In the new position, Elkin feels at home because throughout his life he has played and coached sports while participating in several clubs and activities back in his high school days.  As Elkin cherishes this new opportunity he admits the added pressure and diverse conflicts dealt with each day stray away from the norms he encountered as a teacher.  

“Every day in the office is game day.” 

But, Elkin never lets the conflicts and pressure persuade his mind to the negative because he believes every outcome has the opportunity for growth and positive leadership in the long run.

Clearly, in this short amount of time Elkin has already created a positive impact on NHS and laid down the outlines of a blueprint for countless more amazing years to come.