School Board Tables Appointment of Engravalle as Superintendent

The Fort Lee Board of Education voted 5 to 4 Monday in favor of tabling an agenda item that would have appointed Assistant Superintendent of Schools Steven Engravalle “Acting” Superintendent when Raymond Bandlow leaves the post at the end of October after concerns raised by a member of the public called Engravalle’s suitability to take on the role into question and highlighted the desire on the part of other members of the public to have a say in the decision-making process.

Fort Lee resident Paula Colbath lead the charge, asking the board during the public comments portion of the BOE’s regular business meeting to table the agenda item in light of information that had come to her attention and that she said would be potentially embarrassing to Engravalle—information she later revealed to be of a legal and personal financial nature.

Colbath also questioned Engravalle’s experience as a superintendent, having overseen a district with 291 students from one school compared to Fort Lee’s roughly 3,700 students across six schools. She further pointed out that the Hamburg School District has a budget of about $6 million compared to Fort Lee’s roughly $55 million budget.

Colbath said the board was acting too quickly in appointing Engravalle when there are other options and that public input had not been taken into consideration. She said that while she believes Engravalle has a bright future ahead of him, he is not, in her opinion, right for the position of Acting Superintendent of Fort Lee Schools at this time.  

“He’s young; I think he’s going to be doing great things,” Colbath said Tuesday. “He’s energetic; he’s enthusiastic; he’s smart. He’s going to go places, but I don’t think he’s qualified today to run a district with our diversity; with our issues; with our referendum and with the number of schools.”

Colbath told Patch she approached Engravalle prior to the meeting and informed him about the information she intended to bring out, encouraging him to “speak to the Superintendent” about tabling the agenda item so that it could be handled privately.

“I don’t know what was done, but I know that when the meeting started, the item was still there,” she said, adding that, “they left us no option on it.”

“I had tried at multiple levels to get the thing tabled so that I could just share this information and know that they had it, so that if they decided to go forward nonetheless, that’s their prerogative,” Colbath said. “But I didn’t want to have to do it in a public forum.”

After public comments were closed, board member John Bang made a motion to table the agenda item [1B] concerning the appointment of an Acting Superintendent. The motion was seconded by Yusang Park and ultimately passed by the narrowest of possible margins—with Bang, Park, Carmelo Luppino, Helen Yoon and Joseph Surace voting “yes”—thereby tabling the resolution until further notice.  

The incident served in part to highlight the fact that members of the public do wish to be involved in and fully understand the process—Colbath noted the applause when she finished speaking as evidence of this. It also demonstrated that members of both the public and some members of the board felt they needed more time to review a process with which they are evidently not entirely comfortable.

BOE president Arthur Levine said Tuesday morning he intends to appoint a committee “to review the matter,” which he believes should be done before the end of the week.

“We’ll set up a separate committee,” Levine said. “I will do so very soon and get the matter addressed. [The committee] will make a recommendation to the full board.”

Editor's Note: David Sarnoff contributed to this article.