Madison Trevaskiss figured she could share her hobbies with students.
“I always liked to cook, sew, and design. I had my own sewing machine,” Ms. Trevaskiss explained. “These were hobbies of mine.”
While she had known that teaching could be her profession one day, she thought she might instruct English, not instruct students how to sew and cook.
She even spoke with her father, Jeff Trevaskiss, a long-time physical education and health teacher and athletic director for the Newark Public School District, about being a gym teacher.
But her passion for what she did in her spare time eventually won out.
“Hey, I thought, why not teach kids my hobbies?” she said.
So Ms. Trevaskiss, who grew up in Hunterdon County and attended North Hunterdon Regional High School, enrolled at nearby Centenary University in Hackettstown.
In college, she worked closely with the Fashion Department while earning her degree in Family and Consumer Services.
She received her diploma in December of 2025 and, within a few weeks, became an employee with the Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School District.
Ms. Trevaskiss is a Family and Consumer Sciences Teacher at Bridgewater-Raritan High School, where she teaches Life Skills Family Consumer Sciences, Home and Interior Design, and Fashion Design.
Ms. Trevaskiss takes a “hands-on approach” to get her point—and stitching—across to her students.
“I have wanted kids to do things with their hands since day one,” she said. “We started with projects, and we were sewing by the second day of class.”
Ms. Trevaskiss reported that her students will participate in culinary, fabric and textile, jewelry-making, and interior design projects for the remainder of this school year.
And Ms. Trevaskiss revealed that she is both anxious and thrilled to share her skills each day at Bridgewater-Raritan High School.
“I wake up each day excited to come to school. People here are amazing when they welcomed me as a new teacher.”