School Security Audit, Alleged Child 'Harassment' Top Local News

Fort Lee police charged a Fairview man Friday with two counts of harassment after he allegedly offered two children on their way to School No. 1 $5 and then a ride in his car Wednesday morning near the intersection of Anderson Ave. and North Ave., and then allegedly approached a different child with the same offer the very next day in the same area.

Police said in both cases the kids refused the money and reported the incidents to school officials who alerted the police.

Fort Lee Police Officer Glenn Iafrate located Luis Caulderon, 21, just down Anderson Ave. from where the incidents allegedly occurred and took him into custody just minutes after the second incident was reported Thursday.

Police said the harassment charge essentially amounts to a “disorderly person charge,” and that they didn’t have enough to go on to charge Caulderon with a more serious crime. (full story)

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Wednesday's incident came just two days after the Fort Lee Board of Education passed a resolution to hire a firm that will conduct a $28,750 security and emergency management audit of all six Fort Lee public schools.

SERAPH, Inc. has conducted over 26,000 audits in schools in the U.S. and abroad, according to Assistant Superintendent Steven Engravalle, who said he’s worked with the company before. Since 1989, SERAPH has trained over 78,000 teachers, 23,000 administrators and 12,000 paraprofessionals, he said.

“The security audit is not really speaking to the current security or past security people or companies, but rather, what we’re asking to do here is to have a thorough examination of our facilities and our practices and policies related to the safety and security of students and facilities,” Fort Lee Superintendent of Schools Raymond Bandlow said. “Out of that, we may very well get some recommendations that have to do with the deployment of security personnel, of cameras and other types of equipment. But perhaps the most important part of it is examination of policies and practices … much of what we’ll be doing is looking at [those] to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to ensure the safety of children.”

Bandlow added that there was not a single event or series of events at Fort Lee High School—or indeed at any of Fort Lee’s schools—that precipitated the need for an audit.

“Our high school’s extremely safe,” he said. “But I think we all have to recognize that we live right on the doorstep of the busiest bridge in the world. And the traffic that comes through this area—through Fort Lee—not all of the traffic is of the positive, constructive type. We operate as a school district—given our location—with very, very little in the way of security personnel.” (full story)

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Bergen Community College (BCC) just completed the first year of a pilot program offering classes at Fort Lee High School. The president of the college told the Fort Lee Mayor and Council Thursday that while that program is going to continue and possibly expand in the fall, he’d like to explore the possibility of developing a 10- to 12-classroom satellite center in Fort Lee in the near future.

“Our demographics indicate that we could have many more students [if we had a center in Fort Lee],” BCC president Jeremiah Ryan told the borough’s governing body at Thursday’s executive session. “This last semester we went through kind of a pilot program that worked pretty well at the high school. For this fall, we anticipate having many more courses we’ll be advertising. We’ll be working with community leaders to determine what they ought to be. We’re excited about being able to offer more courses here.”

Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich suggested the west parcel of Redevelopment Area 5 to the BCC president as a potential location for a Fort Lee center, but he later told reporters the borough would stay out of it, and that such an eventuality is "years, and years and years down the road.” (full story)

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Towns undergo a metamorphosis like an evolving organism, wrote Fort Lee Patch reporter Kyung Lee this week. And whether this process involves housing, new businesses opening up or community events, towns change.

Organizations like the Korean American Association of Fort Lee (KAAFL) act as one of the community catalysts for a better transition. 

According to the vice president of the KAAFL, Kathy Lee, the organization stresses more than just fulfilling Korean and Korean American interests, but promotes cultural diversity and community. 

“We’re not trying to help Koreans who immigrated here or Korean Americans create their own community,” Lee said. “America is a melting pot, so we’re trying to help them assimilate to other ethnicities and be culturally open.” (full story)

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The Pennsylvania-based nonprofit group Operation Paperback has been collecting used books nationwide and sending them to American troops stationed at military bases in the U.S. and deployed overseas since 1999. The in Fort Lee has been participating in the program for about three weeks—since Memorial Day, as Rev. Allison Moore points out.

Moore said the idea to take part this year came about when one of the church’s parishioners, whose daughter is a police officer in New York City, told her about the precinct collecting books as part of Operation Paperback.

Moore thought it was “a good idea for the church” and also saw it as an opportunity to promote the Good Shepherd’s involvement in the community. (full story)

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Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich spoke before a small but attentive crowd at the Fort Lee Senior Center Wednesday, discussing topics such as Redevelopment Area 5, the economy and traffic in the borough.

Touted by the Homeowners group as “Our Mayor, Mark Sokolich, on Fort Lee News,” Sokolich gave a springtime start date for work on Redevelopment 5. The Borough Council recently voted to extend by 90 days April’s settlement and escrow agreement that cleared the way for the two approximately eight-acre parcels of land to be developed.

A lengthy Q&A followed the mayor’s talk. (full story with video)

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Participants in the 2011 George Washington Bridge Challenge walked, ran and biked Sunday across the bridge to raise funds and support the mission of the American Cancer Society. The GWB Challenge—this year in its 24th year—is the only event that shuts down the bridge, according to organizers. (full story and photo gallery)

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The Fort Lee Board of Education opened its regular meeting Monday by recognizing a group of Fort Lee Middle School students for transforming their school’s center-island garden into something the whole school can be proud of.

Some of the students who participated in the project along with their teachers, their principal and some of their parents were in attendance at the meeting.

Also at the outset of Monday’s meeting, one of the board’s two student representatives said farewell. Graduating senior Peter Liapes, who was attending his last meeting in the role, gave his report before telling the board and those gathered for the meeting what a great school experience he had throughout his years in the Fort Lee school system and thanking the board, administrators, teachers and others for giving him the opportunity to serve. (full story)

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And the Jack Alter Community Center was really rocking Friday night, when rockers and music fans turned out in force for Fort Lee’s annual Battle of the High School Bands sponsored by the Fort Lee Film Commission FLFC.

The annual "battle"—open to all high school bands from Bergen County—offered hopefuls a winner-take-all top prize of $500. (full story and photo gallery)

The Week in Review appears every Sunday morning on Fort Lee Patch.