Fort Lee High School Academy for the Performing Arts Students Protest Cuts to Program at Board of Ed Meeting

Members of the Fort Lee High School Academy for the Performing Arts showed up at the May 16th meeting of the Fort Lee Board of Ed with their mouths covered with red tape.  This excellent  visual was in response to their inability to be heard by the powers that be at the previous Board of Ed meeting.  As a member of the Fort Lee Coalition for the Arts, I was proud to join with fellow Coalition for the Arts members to lend my voice to the concerns of these bright, educated and articulate students.  Articulate you ask?  How can you be articulate with red tape over your mouth?  Well that tape was removed later in the evening and several of these students asked intelligent, pointed and objective questions to the Board of Ed members and the  Superintendent, Raymond Bandlow.  Mr. Bandlow answered in a perfunctory manner and kept going back to the 2 percent cap and the cuts in funds.  What we as a Borough need is for educators and administrators to think out of the box in these difficult times and to reach out to organizations within the community for help prior to cuts to a program that eventually will lead to its demise.

Board member Joseph Surace, as the meeting opened, praised the Circle of the Arts program that takes place every other year in May at the High School.  The Circle of the Arts will take place this Friday night, May 20th from 6-9:30 PM at the Fort Lee High School.  Later in the evening students of the Academy told Mr. Surace that the cuts to the Academy program will damage programs like the Circle of the Arts.  Words are nice, but actions speak louder and I urge Mr. Surace to petition his fellow Board members and the Superintendent to find ways around these draconian cuts to a program that is vital to the education and future of Fort Lee students.

Fort Lee is a community rich in the history of the arts and in the 20th century Fort Lee was home to such artists as George Overbury "Pop" Hart.  Hart was a central figure in the Fort Lee, New Jersey artists' colony and counted among his close friends such important artists as Jules Pascin, Walt Kuhn, Edward Hopper and Arthur B. Davies.  Among other well-known artists in the Fort Lee colony of artists in the 20th century was  George Price of The New Yorker fame, Willard Ortlip and his family of artists, and Al Hirschfeld.   Hirschfeld was hired as art director at Selznick Studios here in Fort Lee, NJ at the age of 18.  Hirschfeld worked with studio owner Louis J. Seznick's son, David O. Selznick, creating the publicity poster for the silent film classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.  

The arts in Fort Lee also include the only art form born in this nation, film.  Fort Lee is the birthplace of the American film industry and many studios were born in Fort Lee and they include Fox and Universal.  The first woman director in cinema history, Alice Guy Blache, built and operated Solax Studios in 1912 in Fort Lee on property adjacent to the current day Fort Lee High School.  The Barrymore family of actors lived and worked in Fort Lee and took an active role in the community in that Barrymore patriarch Maurice Barrymore organized several fundraisers for the Fort Lee Fire Department that raised funds to build a fire house in the Coytesville section of Fort Lee on Washington Avenue and to also purchase uniforms for the firemen.

Dr. Bandlow and the Board of Ed would be well served by a lesson in local history - read and learn about Maurice Barrymore and his successful efforts to raise funds for the fire department in this town in 1900.  At a fundraiser that year, Maurice threw his 18-year-old son, Jack "Jack" Barrymore on stage and this was young Jack's stage debut.  The Fort Lee Coalition for the Arts uses this piece of history to raise funds for the Fort Lee High School Academy for the Performing Arts each year on Jack Barrymore's birthday, February 15th.  The Coalition and Fort Lee Film Commission successfully petitioned the Fort Lee Mayor & Council to place a commemorative street sign on the corner of Main Street and Central Road reading John Barrymore Way.  This is the location of Buckheister's Hotel where Barrymore made his stage debut at that fundraiser.  We hold our fundraiser across the street at In Napoli Restaurant.  For the past two years we have raised funds to sponsors a Shakespeare workshop for the Academy of the Arts members at Fort Lee High School.  We can and will do more but we need the assistance of the Board of Education and  Superintendent Bandlow.  And more than that, we need their attendance at these annual fundraisers.  The nice words of Mr. Surace need to be backed up by action for the arts in our schools cannot live on just kind words, the arts need active support.  The Fort Lee Coalition for the Arts remains ready to continue our work in support of the arts in our schools but we need the Board of Education and the Superintendent to reach out and help us help the kids.