Students, town reps sort out issues of importance Human relations is focus of meeting at

Students, town reps sort
out issues of importance
Human relations is
focus of meeting at

Freehold Borough H.S.

By Clare Marie celano

Staff Writer

FREEHOLD — In a joint effort between municipal officials and the borough’s Human Relations Committee, Freehold Borough High School students were shown in a tangible way that their town cares about them and supports them 100 percent.

Members of the Borough Council and the Human Relations Committee attended the high school’s Human Relations Forum on May 29 to meet with students and give them a chance to express their opinions on issues recently occurring in the Freehold Regional High School District.

The Human Relations Forum at the high school started 10 years ago under the direction of Principal Dr. Carol McKee. The forum was created in response to a student walkout, according to Human Relations Forum adviser JoAnne Egli. She said the students took offense to certain things that had been written in the school newspaper. Rather than expanding on the negative aspects of the situation, Egli said McKee took a positive stand to the problem.

Egli said McKee presented the students with the possibility of holding a forum, offering them a place and an opportunity to express their views and concerns. The students who had walked out accepted her offer, went back into their classrooms, and the forum, 10 years later, is continuing.

"Dr. McKee took something that could have been largely negative and turned it into something supremely positive," Egli said.

The adviser said that by giving students a chance to express their concerns, McKee showed the teen-agers their opinions were important and that they counted.

Egli, who has been co-adviser of the forum for five years out of the last 10, along with Nick Tabor, said the mission statement of the school’s human relations group is to respect one another’s diversity, to raise students’ self-esteem and to get involved in community outreach efforts.

The final forum for the 2001-02 school year included a panel of guests who presented mini town meetings. The guests included Borough Council members Kevin Coyne, Robert Crawford, Michael DiBenedetto, Kevin Kane and Michael Toubin. Also in attendance were Human Relations Committee members Frank Freyre, former mayor Roger Kane, former councilman Marc LeVine, the Rev. Andre McGuire and Ronald Reich, a member of the Freehold Borough Board of Education. Graduates from the high school were also included on the panel.

Kane said he initially made contact with the advisers of the school’s Human Relations Forum after what he said was much negative publicity about the high school. The matter in which Freehold Borough High School became an issue concerned the potential redistricting of students in the Freehold Regional High School District.

Kane said he felt that communicating with the students was a good way to show them the town supports them.

"Students were reacting to all the negative press. We needed to show them that we all cared," said the former mayor.

A meeting and exchange of ideas was planned to give the students "their turn at bat," he said.

"We were so impressed by the kids and by what they’ve done with their own Human Relations Forum," Kane said. "They’ve done great things there. During our meetings the students had a chance to air their concerns and talk about how the negative press has really affected them."

Kane quoted one student as saying, "When something happens in Freehold Borough High School, it makes the front page. If it happens in any of the other schools it gets buried somewhere in the back."

Suggestions from the meetings, according to Kane, were presenting a tour of the school for those students who would be in line for redistricting to allow them to see what things are really like at the high school.

Coyne suggested setting up a meeting between the council, the Human Relations Committee, the high school Human Relations Forum and representatives of the media in order to exchange ideas and help each other out.

Kane said he told the students they needed to take a proactive stance.

"We shouldn’t have to defend our school or our town," he said. "By taking a proactive stance we tell about all the good things going on around here. We encouraged the students to express their feelings over the negative press. It’s over and done with. The question is what now?"

Freehold’s former mayor said the members of the panel were impressed with the conduct and respect of the teens as well as the questions and interest they generated.

Kane said he sees the two groups joining forces again on a regular basis as something he’d very much like to continue.

Coyne said he wanted to "make it clear and unmistakable to the students that we’re all in this together." He said Egli told him the Human Relations Forum was driven by the redistricting issue at the high school.

"The students read the papers, too. They don’t like it," Coyne said, noting that he told the students that he and several other members of the council wrote letters to the media in defense of the students and the school.

"They appreciated what we did for them," he added. "We met with the students, told them the things we were working on in our Human Relations Committee and had discussions about how we could help each other. We wanted them to know we are as much a part of them as they are a part of us. We’re not separate. We’re all a part of a community and we’re proud of our community and of our school and our students as well."

Coyne told the students they should be proud of the tradition of diversity in their school, citing that the Rev. G.B. Winston, the first black American to graduate from the high school in 1917, went on to become president of the Urban League in Springfield, Ill.

"This is not something new," he said. "Diversity is something not to be defended, but to be proud of and it’s something to be cherished."

Coyne said he encouraged the teens to come to town meetings, telling them that is the surest way to be heard.

"This is the start of what I hope is a long and productive working relationship," he said of the Human Relations Committee’s meeting with the high school Human Relations Forum representatives.