Bridge Builder: Fort Lee High School Students Give Me Hope For The Future

I attended the Board of Education meeting tonight, and from what I witnessed, I have hope for the future.  Over 20 high school students attended the meeting with red duct tape covering their mouths as a show of civil disobedience.  The students sat silently and did not cause a disruption.  After waiting patiently for their turn, they stood up en mass and addressed the board in a respectful but firm manner and stated their positions clearly and intelligently.  These students were mostly at the meeting to defend the performing arts academy, specifically to save the job of their teacher, Ms. Cutler.  In the several years I have regularly attended board of education meetings, I have not witnessed an outpouring of students like this for one teacher.

I was impressed with the way these students conducted themselves and how they have been persistent since the budgets cuts were announced, that their programs would be greatly affected. Keep in mind, the school budget passed by only 3 votes. The cuts would have been far worse if the budget failed. What these students demonstrated is that when you believe in something, you stand up and be heard. We live in a democracy and a democracy requires participation. Tonight, these students participated. Many adults could learn from them when we have less than 15 percent of registered voters voting in school board elections.

Their statement also raises other questions as to why this teacher’s job couldn’t be saved.  The board and the administration have a very difficult job making the system work, especially with less and less funds.  Could cuts have been made somewhere else? Could other employees have forgone salary increases, or agree to temporary rollbacks to save the jobs of others?  Hopefully going forward, we as a community learn from this so that we can try to prevent debilitating cuts in the future. My hat is off to these students.

On another note, I posed a question to the board about whether the members of the board of education support the creation of a charter school in the borough of Fort Lee.  After some back and forth with the board attorney over the appropriateness of that question, seven members of the board spoke up and answered “No”, two board members did not answer.  If anyone has a different observation of that encounter, please speak up.