FLHS Students, Engravalle Appear on ‘Dr. Drew’ Show Monday

Fort Lee’s Assistant Superintendent of Schools and several Fort Lee High School students appeared before a national TV audience Monday as guests on HLN’s Dr. Drew show with Dr. Drew Pinsky. The subject of the special report was bullying; the Fort Lee contingent was there to discuss New Jersey’s new anti-bullying law and the effect it's having in their school.

A Dr. Drew producer and camera crew visited Friday morning to interview a panel of seven students chosen by their teachers and school administrators and to pre-interview Steven Engravalle, who is also the school district’s anti-bullying coordinator.

Engravalle told Patch Friday morning that he was contacted by the producers of the show because, he was told, Fort Lee was identified as one of two schools in New Jersey “that kind of had it together when it came to the bullying law,” and his name “kept coming up” in their research. An email exchange ensued between Engravalle and the show’s producer during which Engravalle said he suggested the idea of including some of the students.

“I asked them to have our kids filmed, and we talked about it, and [the producer] thought it was a great idea,” Engravalle said.

On Friday morning in the high school library Dr. Drew producer Cristina Hernandez interviewed the seven students on camera—junior Andrew Fuentes, senior Megan Gimson, junior Hunter McCue, sophomore Michael Morell, freshman Laura Shih, sophomore Devin Sokolich and sophomore Jaryn Stewart—on topics related to bullying.

During the on-camera Q&A session, Hernandez asked the students what bullying means to them; whether they’ve ever been bullied and what they did about it; whether they feel comfortable going to their teachers, what their teachers do in response and whether the teachers seem to be paying more attention to bullying-related problems; cyber-bullying; “sexting” and even what they thought about the high-profile story of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers University student who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge in September prompting the new law. Several parents of the students being interviewed showed up at the high school library Friday in support of their kids and to watch the shoot.

Jaryn Stewart’s parents, Shel and Sharon Stewart, said their daughter was “very excited.” An acting student in the high school’s Academy of Performing Arts (APA) program, Jaryn was chosen by her acting teacher to participate, said Sharon Stewart.

“I think they wanted them to be good on camera,” she said. “And she talks.”

Also in attendance Friday morning was Megan Gimson’s mother, Helen Gimson, who said she was “excited for her [daughter] to have the opportunity.”

“She’s never done anything like this before,” she said, adding that she thought her daughter was chosen not only because of a teacher’s recommendation, but also because of her involvement in the Peer Outreach Service Team (POST), a group of students trained in peer mediation who have been actively involved in the high school’s anti-bullying programming.

Holly Morell, Michael Morell’s mother, said her son has been bullied in the past.

“It was rectified, but it was a good amount of years before it was rectified,” she said. “So we came through the tunnel; we finally came out into the light. Everything is much better now, but for a while, there was a lot of darkness.”

She added that she wasn’t sure her son realized “how huge and fundamental” it was to be interviewed on national TV.

Later in the day on Friday, Engravalle and two of the students, Megan Gimson and Andrew Fuentes, were transported by limousine to the Time Warner Center near Columbus Circle in Manhattan for an in-studio interview with Pinsky himself.

“It was a terrific, terrific experience for everybody,” Engravalle said of both the morning and early evening shoots. “The students were outstanding. Megan and Andrew did a terrific job. We’re just excited, and we couldn’t be more proud of all the kids.”

He went on to describe the experience with Pinsky after the shoot in New York.

“I was nervous because I didn’t want to say too much or too little, and you’re trying to get the gist of it,” Engravalle said. “But the kids were pros. They absolutely knew what to say, and they put me right at ease. [Pinsky] did most of the talking with them. He asked me a couple of questions at the end, but they were outstanding and articulate, and just re-iterated what we talked about [Friday morning]: why it happens and how it happens and why it’s important to discuss.”

Megan Gimson told Patch she thought the interview with Pinsky went well, describing it as “a really cool experience.”

“I think we all came across well,” Megan said. “I’m nervous to see myself because I just hate looking at myself on television.”

Andrew Fuentes shared the sentiment that the whole experience was a lot of fun, but he also said he too was apprehensive at first.

“I was kind of nervous in the beginning, but then, it was kind of comfortable with [Pinsky] being there,” Andrew said. “He was a very nice guy. He made us feel very comfortable.”

Megan and Andrew also agreed that while Pinsky made them feel at ease during the interview, he tripped them up somewhat with a question about whether they themselves had ever been in the position of being a bully.

“I’m not always a bully, but there’s been once or twice when I’ve been peer-pressured into bullying someone else because of popularity,” Andrew said, adding that the uncomfortable question also made him think.

“I really regret doing it now because I’ve been bullied myself, and I hated it,” he said.

Engravalle encouraged people to tune in Monday night (9 p.m. on HLN), saying of all the students, “They did a great job. I just can’t say enough.”

“What I was most impressed with and most happy about was that everything they said—all seven students [Friday morning] and both Andrew and Megan again [in New York]—they were able to articulate the message that we hope that they would understand,” Engravalle said. “And they were able to articulate it in a way that indicated that they do understand what is right, what is wrong and why it’s important that we’re engaged in these activities.”

He added, “It’s more a culture change than anything else.”

“The law just gives you a procedure and forces people who, in my opinion, were negligent before by not following what common sense would say—what’s right and just—by helping kids and paying attention to kids in a way that indicates you care about them,” he said. “It’s a sad state of affairs in society when we have to make a law that forces adults in public education to care about kids and report things because we know down deep in some places it wasn’t being done. All [the law] did for us was open up a conversation. We always had the processes. We always had the procedures and paperwork. But it opened up that conversation and explained to everyone involved how important it is to pay attention to students and prevent situations that might make them feel inferior or stressed because of bullying, harassment or intimidation. It’s that simple. It shouldn’t take the governor to sign a piece of paper.”

An obviously proud Engravalle said the opportunity to put Fort Lee schools in the national spotlight serves in part as affirmation that the district is doing something right with regard to the new law.

“This law wasn’t put into effect for Fort Lee,” he said. “And that’s why it was easy for us … If when a major news network does research and comes up with two schools in the state that are the most advanced, and we are one of them, that let’s me know that we were doing it all along, or we wouldn’t have been able to get up and running that fast.”