PASCACK VALLEY—More than 25,000 alumni of Pascack Hills and Pascack Valley high schools can now network via the Pascack Valley Regional Hub, or PVR Alumni Hub, a database of alumni from the two regional high schools, serving Montvale, River Vale, Hillsdale, and Woodcliff Lake.
The resource is the work principally of Paul Zeller, the district’s director of technology and communication, and his former intern, Brian Buckley, a 2020 graduate of Pascack Valley High School, now at Montclair State University.
At the district BOE meeting on Monday, Feb. 7, Zeller said his team was working on data clean-up and awaiting a green light from legal. On June 7, Zeller announced the PVR Alumni Hub was live.
He explained, “At a minimum, the PVR Alumni Hub is a digitized library of all students who graduated Pascack Hills and Pascack Valley High Schools, but the intent is for it to be a hub where alumni, teachers, and current students can connect.”
Anyone can visit the website, https://alumni.pascack.org, and search to find alumni. The public sees the name, school, year of graduation, and senior year photo of the alumnus; the same information found in school yearbooks.
Zeller said, “The hope and intent is for alumni to use this as a tool to connect with one another, as well as with current students and staff, building stronger bonds throughout our community.”
Alumni can claim their profile on the PVR Alumni Hub, provide as much (or as little) information as they choose, then specify their preferred methods of communication through their own social media.
“Current students and staff, as well as other alumni who have claimed their profile, will have access to search the site to make connections based criteria such as location, profession/industry, and if they are willing to mentor,” Zeller said.
He explained the idea for this came from “the district’s desire to have a stronger connection with our alumni, coupled with a digital yearbook concept I learned about at a National School Public Relations Association conference.”
He added, “What I saw at the conference was great, but I thought it would be even better if we had ways for alumni, current students and staff to connect.”
He said he discussed the idea with then-senior Buckley, who was his intern at the time, and he took it on as his internship project.
“Brian ran away with the concept, bringing in great ideas to take the project even further and handling all of the software development,” Zeller said.
He explained, “When the pandemic forced schools to go remote in March 2020, the fate of the project was unclear. However, after graduation, Brian was willing to continue on. Two years later, the PVR Alumni Hub is now ready to serve the community.”
He added, “We are incredibly grateful to Brian for all of the work he put into this project. An alumnus helping his fellow alumni and our entire community stay better connected is a happy ending to this great story.”
Zeller’s announcement says, “All are encouraged to visit the PVR Alumni Hub. If you know of alumni who have moved away from the area, the district asks you to consider forwarding them this website so they can stay connected.”
Security baked in
We’ve been following this project since February, when Zeller and Buckley presented the plan to the board. He told Pascack Press at the time, “Levels of security are put in place so that the alumni can share as little or as much as they choose. They have the ability to make information public to the world, closed to the registered alumni community, to PVRHS District students/staff, or not share any information at all.”
He said, “The information will never be sold, and will only be used as the alumni choose. We’re not selling your information; we’re not sharing your information.”
Zeller said the district does not store user names or passwords but that is done though existing social media accounts. He said that no communication occurs on the PVR Hub but instead via the social media platform that a user is “already comfortable with” — including Facebook, Google, Instagram, Amazon, LinkedIn, and Spotify.
In his part of the presentation to the board, Buckley walked trustees through account creation, identity verification, and profile editing. He also demonstrated how to filter for alumni in specific occupations or locations.
Zeller said alumni will be able to opt in for district updates.
Board President Joseph Blundo lauded the presentation in February. “Those of you who have been around, we’ve been talking about that for years. You guys brought it home, thank God. Great job.”
Zeller, whose office aims to deliver “world-class instructional technology tools for our students and faculty” and give district stakeholders and the general public “a clear understanding of district direction,” undertakes a project with each of his interns.
Zeller’s interns add their stamp
Zeller told Pascack Press he and each year’s intern tackle a project based on need, interest, skill, and the student’s plans beyond high school. “We figure it out together as we go.”
His intern this year, Izzy DiBari of PVHS, developed a district YouTube series, “Spotlight On,” consisting of videos of 2–5 minutes showcasing aspects of student and academic life, from the wrestling team to the robotics team to the school newspapers.
Planning to to go school for radio and television broadcasting, she started with Zeller helping her through the technical demands of the internship “and she’s to the point now where she’s scheduling the shoots on her own, and developing the production schedule on her own. Now it’s really her own,” Zeller said.
He added, “It’s wonderful. She’s so excited about it, she’s so good at it, and I didn’t have the manpower for it. This is part of her internship — part of her grade. It’s something she takes seriously and the district’s now got a stronger YouTube presence, so it’s a win for both of us.”
Past intern Samantha Goldman from Hills, now a communications major at Tulane University, assisted Zeller in launching the district’s social media presence and revising its communications plan.
“She might not have done something like that until her junior or senior year in college. So we try to give them a step ahead,” he said.
Indeed, leveraging her internship experience with the district, Goldman landed an internship at the Kaplan JCC as their social media coordinator this summer.
In point of fact, all of Zeller’s interns have had a hand in PVR Hub, though he emphasized this is principally Buckley’s project.
“Brian is interested in becoming a computer science educator, so this was very much a computer science-type project he would maybe do in his senior year of college but he got the experience … in his senior year of high school,” Zeller said.
He added, “It’s a great experience for the kids and it’s a great experience for me. I wouldn’t have gotten as much work done in the past three years without those interns.”