Richard K. Cohen

Richard K. Cohen is a first time author, assistant superintendent of Metuchen School District in New Jersey, Co-Adjunct Faculty for Rutgers University and educational consultant (selfq.org). He is former principal of Red Bank Primary School in New Jersey. Prior to Red Bank, Rick was the founding director of a new bilingual school, Colegio Americano, in San Salvador, El Salvador. Rick began his teaching career as a Teach for America corps member in 1996 in Phoenix, AZ. Rick’s first formal teaching assignment was in juvenile detention centers in Washtenaw County Michigan as a University of Michigan Project Community service-learning student facilitator. His educational experiences range from working in predominantly low-income minority schools as a middle and high school teacher, vice-principal and principal for predominantly under-resourced traditional public and charter schools, to a teacher, director and assistant superintendent of some of the most affluent and high-performing public schools in New Jersey and private schools in El Salvador. Rick’s work infusing academic state standards and SEL skills together along with evidence-based character education has won National and State (NJ) School of Character Awards and a National Promising Practice Award from Character.org. Rick’s work has been published in Character.org’s The Eleven Principles of Effective Character, Edutopia and NJEA Review’s Great Ideas Column. Rick has served as a leader of SEL at the district, county, state and national levels. He has provided training on embedding SEL into state standards-aligned curricula throughout the United States as well as served as a presenter on SEL for numerous professional organizations and universities throughout NJ. Rick Cohen received a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree in educational administration from Rutgers University.