Students Transform Middle School’s Center-Island Garden

A select group of Fort Lee Middle School students put the finishing touches on the new center-island garden at the school Monday after two school days filled with hard work and learning.

Middle School Principal Rosemary Giacomelli said that what started out as “a little project” to dig up some weeds and re-plant the garden, which fronts the main entrance of the building, took on a life of its own, becoming something bigger and much more important to the students involved.

Giacomeli said Sheri Steckler, a special education and Language Arts teacher at the middle school, took the lead on the project, in part because her classroom looks out on the garden.

“It had weeds, and it had some random flowers coming up that we never saw,” Giacomelli said of what had become of the school’s centerpiece in recent months. “It was horrible. [Steckler] was looking at it one day and said, ‘We’ve got to do something. Let’s make it a class project.’”

With Giacomelli’s approval, Steckler did just that. Along with special education Math teacher Howard Sidorsky, Steckler rounded up a group of 10 mostly seventh graders—and one eighth grader—from among the six classes she teaches and put some of the students she thought were deserving or could benefit most from the experience to work.

A generous donation from the grandmother of one of those students included rain gear, work gloves, shovels and other tools, a wheelbarrow and the plants themselves, and the project was underway.

“Before you knew it, they had all the equipment they needed to start to dig up and work the property,” Giacomelli said. “And they had the greatest time doing it. And the great thing about it was they were talking about work, and what is really work? Until they started this … ‘work’ was just a word.”

Starting last Friday, “The Wrecking Crew from Room 102,” as Giacomelli dubbed the group, drew up plans, dug up weeds, gathered up rocks from the nearby woods and planted what would become an impressive looking garden by any standard and a source of pride.

Steckler called the project “a rewarding experience”—and not only for the students.

“I’ve taught for 26 years, and those were probably the best two teaching days of my life,” she said. “It’s almost like they grew six inches after that. They walked with their heads held higher, and it’s almost like they became famous in the school. They’re hearing everybody talking about it, and—those kids—they worked. It was a real project.”

Eighth grader Roberto Torres was among those who worked on the project. He agreed that it was indeed “tough work,” but he also said, “It was really fun work to do.”

“It blows my mind how we turned this into this and this,” Roberto said, pointing to before and after pictures of the garden. “It’s fantastic. I learned that anything is possible when you put your mind to it.”

Roberto said he felt “really honored” that Steckler chose him to participate.

“I feel like [she] trusted me more to help with such a big project,” he said, adding that he may even change his approach to schoolwork after the experience of working on the garden. “I felt like it taught me I should do my work in here like out there.”

Seventh grader Lenin Hernandez, another member of the “wrecking crew,” said he thinks the group earned a measure of respect as well from other kids at the school.

“It doesn’t really matter what classes you’re in,” Lenin said. “It just matters how you’re doing. People can respect us for what we did, and they can see it was a hard job for us. But we did it, and we’re happy.”

Steckler said she was particularly pleased with the level of cooperation and helpfulness the students demonstrated throughout the project.

“Everybody was just helping everybody,” she said. “There was no arguing, no fighting—just teamwork. And there was no discipline that had to happen. They really stepped up.”

Another of those stepping up was seventh grader and the only girl to take part in the project, Chelsea Denniston-Lee, who said she took more away from the experience than just how to plant a garden and use a shovel, although she did admit that part was fun too.

“It makes me feel good,” Chelsea said. “It kind of leaves a mark. All the generations that are going to see it again, we’re kind of remembered as the ones who did it. When I’m 30 years old, I can come back here and say, ‘Hey, I did that.’”

And then there’s seventh grader Phil Barila, whose grandmother, Paline Barila, runs Donerite Construction and donated “everything we needed to get the job done,” according to Steckler, including her time.

Steckler may have been the foreman of the project, she said, but Phil, whose father passed away prematurely when the boy was just a fourth grader, was the foreman of the students, given his experience with the family business.

“It looks better than the weeds that were there before,” Phil said, surveying the new garden with a discerning eye and adding that he learned “how helping each other could be better for the whole school and that when you help, you can make something that looks ugly before look fantastic and beautiful.”

An obviously proud Giacomelli echoed that sentiment and much of what the students themselves expressed, saying, “It just goes to show that no matter what your capabilities, there are always possibilities. You can do anything you put your mind to. No matter how old you are, no matter how strong you are or whatever, it’s a unique situation to be able to do something like this.”

The complete roster of “The Wrecking Crew from Room 102” is as follows:

• Phil Barila
• Andrew Cheaz
• Chelsea Denniston-Lee
• Argjend Nela
• Brandon Lane
• Daniel Shafaat
• Anthony Barkachy
• Lazzarus Ciurtiza
• Lenin Hernandez
• Roberto Torres