Meet Hudson County ESP of the Year Kimberly Corley
By Kathryn Coulibaly
For nearly two decades, Kimberly Corley has been a steady, trusted presence in Jersey City Public Schools. She is a paraprofessional whose work is rooted in compassion, community and a lifelong fascination with how children learn and grow. Now honored as the 2025-26 Hudson County ESP of the Year, Corley’s professional journey has been shaped by family legacy, personal experience and a deep commitment to the students she serves.
Corley grew up watching her grandmother, longtime Jersey City educator Johnnie Mae Corley, command a classroom with grace and authority. When Corley forgot her house key as a child, she would sit in her grandmother’s high school classroom until dismissal, observing how her grandmother interacted with colleagues and students, some of whom were Corley’s own friends.
“I saw how she moved, communicated and connected,” she recalls. “I saw her in action.” Those early memories planted the seeds of a career spent supporting children with disabilities and helping them navigate a world that doesn’t always understand them.
Her professional path began in daycare, where she worked for eight years while raising her own children. When their school schedules became difficult to balance, she opened a home daycare business. But the restrictions of the job left her feeling confined. In 2006, she joined Jersey City Public Schools, where she found the meaningful, community-centered work she had been searching for.
Today, Corley is a teacher aide of the handicapped, working primarily with students with disabilities. She also holds a master’s degree in special education, a reflection of her desire to understand children’s behavior on a deeper level. Her interest is personal as well as professional: when her brother struggled as a child, it was her grandmother who insisted on neurological testing, helping the family understand how to support him. “From then on, we knew how to work with him differently,” she says. That experience shaped her belief that every child’s behavior has a story and that adults must take the time to understand it.
Corley’s work is grounded in relationships. A lifelong Jersey City resident, she often knows her students’ families long before they enter her classroom. Parents trust her, confide in her and sometimes even ask her to discipline their children. These are requests she gently declines. “I love building relationships with the children and their parents,” she says. “I want to be part of the foundation that helps them become happy, productive citizens.”
Her leadership extends beyond the classroom. As second vice president of the Jersey City Paraprofessional Association, she advocates fiercely for her colleagues. “Sometimes we’re at the bottom of the totem pole, and that’s not fair,” she says. “Parents are drawn to us. They talk to us. We’re organizers.” She spends countless hours signing up new members and explaining why union representation matters.
When she learned she had been named Hudson County ESP of the Year, she was stunned. “I never knew people were watching me,” she says. “It’s amazing.”
For Corley, caring for children has always been a calling. She once cared for the infants of teen mothers who couldn’t afford daycare because she knew they needed to stay in school. One day, she hopes to open her own preschool center, a dream rooted in the same purpose that has guided her entire career: giving every child the chance to thrive.
Kathryn Coulibaly writes the monthly ESP column. She is an associate director in the Communications Divison