Hicksville school teacher launches candy cart teaching kids practical skills
Hicksville Middle School teacher John Romero launched a candy cart with his students. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
John Romero is the Candy Man.
The special education teacher at Hicksville Middle School has organized his sixth, seventh and eighth grade students into a team that runs a mobile snack cart every Thursday.
The eight students take turns selling chips and candy to staff members and fellow students, handling money and interacting with "customers" as they practice math and life skills, selling snacks for about $2 each. Extra motivation: Their profits have funded field trips to a local bowling alley and off-site shopping outings to BJ's Wholesale Club to fill up the cart's offerings.
Romero said the best part is when his students interact with the school's general education students. "They get to intermingle and talk and form friendships," he said.
Special education teacher John Romero walks through Hicksville Middle School with his students as they sell candy and chips to classmates and staff. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
The snack cart is just one example of Romero's commitment to helping students build confidence and independence.
Romero, 35, of Merrick, grew up in East Northport and graduated from St. Anthony’s High School in South Huntington in 2008. He earned a degree in accounting at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, but said he always knew he wanted to be a teacher.
During college, he volunteered at an adult literacy center and tutored in a prison, where he met people who told him they hadn’t had the best education growing up. He felt "if they had better teachers at the time, and maybe better role models, that they wouldn't have ended up in that situation. So, I always said from that point on that I'm going to do the best that I can in order to be that great teacher so that my students have the opportunities that they need," Romero said.
After graduation, Romero first worked at an accounting firm. "In my heart, I knew that I wanted to be a teacher, and I knew that I was in the wrong spot." He then earned a master’s degree in adolescent education. "I like working with people who really need the help, who really need that extra support, that extra motivation, that extra push," Romero said.
Romero's candy cart, launched in 2022, is just one of the ways he does that. He's also the general education 8th grade class advisor. With those students, he’s helped organize schoolwide fun and games.
A "get to know you" Bingo event at the beginning of the school year uses teachers’ names and clubs and events at the school as the Bingo card squares. When each is called, Romero will add a fun fact. "Say I call ‘Mr. Jones’ out, then I'll say a fact: ‘Did you know that Mr. Jones went scuba diving two times in the last month?’ "
The school also has a staff and students "Family Feud" game. "You know how in Family Feud, they say, ‘The top 100 people surveyed’? We surveyed all the students ... and that's how we got the results. It was fun because the kids' input determined the answers to the questions," Romero said. An indoor fake snowball fight was also a hit, Romero said.
School principal Benjamin Tangney said Romero "is one of the most empathetic individuals I have had the pleasure of working with. Mr. Romero really embodies what we would love all our students to experience from their teachers."
Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
