Board of Education to Splurge on Academic and Athletic Awards Banquets

The Fort Lee Board of Education voted at its regular business meeting Monday to hold its high school academic and athletic awards banquets at Fiesta in Wood-Ridge, NJ, continuing a tradition of celebrating academic and athletic excellence in style in spite of the extra cost.

But the decision to charge $25.74 per attendee and $35 for parents to help offset the cost to the board didn’t come without some resistance from at least one member of the school board.

“I believe it’s time that we celebrate these two great celebrations of our school district within our school and within our town,” said board member Yusang Park. “We’re in a very tough time, economically speaking, so I think in order to bring more people into a celebration of our students’ achievements we can easily have these functions at our high school or even our community center if we can arrange it with the town. I think it would be much more financially economical, and I think it would be a greater enjoyment for the kids, their families and friends.”

But Park didn’t find much support among his fellow school board members.

“Over the years, the students have enjoyed an evening of dinner and awards for their achievements,” said board president Carmelo Luppino. “I think that one thing I like about it is that they’re well attended by the children and their parents. What happens if you do it in town in the schools, it becomes a fly-by-night. There might be a little bit of a savings, but I believe that the children should be recognized for what they have done.”

In fact it turns out the savings would indeed be minimal were the school district to hold the banquets for an estimated 300 people at the high school, as was suggested at Monday’s BOE meeting —the least expensive alternative being to use the cafeteria and the auditorium stage.

Fort Lee Superintendent of Schools Raymond Bandlow pointed out that the parental contribution helps subsidize the cost, and the actual cost to the board is $4,900 for the academic banquet and $9,200 for the athletic banquet at Fiesta, adding that the cost of trophies alone for the athletic event is $5,000.

“So the biggest part of the cost we would still have,” Bandlow said, estimating the savings to the board on the academic dinner to be about $3,000 were that alternative chosen and the total cost of the athletic banquet to be about $6,000 compared to the about $9,000 it would cost to hold the event at the Fiesta.

Still, Park wasn’t quite ready to back down, re-iterating the more than $25 price tag.

“So if you have a family that wants to celebrate a child’s achievement, sometimes it would force a family to bring only two members of the family, like the mother and father, when you could bring the whole family,” Park said.

Board member Arthur Levine countered, saying, “I think being mindful of the cost, I think the kids who participate in sports, who look forward to that dinner, I think it’s a small price to pay, and I’d recommend that we continue that practice. I think it’s really important to the kids.”

And at least one parent in the audience agreed with Levine.

“There’s really not much that we do for our students that we go over the top,” she said. “This is a very nice thing.”

The board approved the set of finance resolutions under which the issue was listed unanimously.