BY ELAINE VAN DEVELDE
Staff Writer
EDISON — The year was 1963. A young Vincent Capraro had set out on his life’s journey as an educator. He would never forget it.
It was also the year that another ambitious young man, living his own American dream, would be cheated by death. That man was President John F. Kennedy .
His death was one of the first things Capraro dealt with as a new teacher. It would also prove to be the most devastating event during his 43-year career, which will come to an end Jan. 1.
There were a lot of milestones Capraro, now 65, experienced throughout each of the four decades he spent in Edison schools.
But he will never forget that day of history as a new teacher in the politically charged 1960s.
The assassination came barely two months after he started his first job at Edison High School as an English and business teacher.
“With President Kennedy’s assassination, the students felt cheated,” Capraro said. “They felt like something was being taken away from them. Kennedy was a young guy and a favorite of youngsters. The teenagers identified with him. In college, students supported him.”
The loss was also something Capraro had to deal with.
“It was the first time in my life that I had been associated with someone being shot,” Capraro said. “I had trouble myself understanding it. Then I had to try to explain it to the students. We had a lot of discussions in class to try to come to terms with it.”
Over the years, there were many more issues, major and minor, to grapple with. And discussions turned into policies as Capraro made his way to the superintendent’s office.
There were many differences between then and now, he said.
Students and teachers dressed up more for school in the 1960s, Capraro said.
“Teachers always wore a tie and students were very neat,” he said. “I still like to see people in a tie. Now that sort of dress code is just implied. Teachers usually know that when they meet with me, especially department heads, I like to see them show up wearing a tie.”
Being more formal in dress, Capraro said, earns respect that goes both ways — from teacher to student and student to teacher.
But while there were spruced up teens in the “old days,” there were also those few who had a habit of wearing their cigarettes — that they weren’t supposed to be smoking — rolled up in their shirt sleeves.
Then there was a groundbreaking dress code situation that became national news in 1965.
Edison High School senior Micha Bartin was told he had to cut his shoulder length hair before he graduated.
“The case was taken up by the American Civil Liberties Union,” Capraro said. “They said he had to graduate and could not be forced to cut his hair. Everyone knew about that.”
Capraro eventually ended up designing the school system’s first dress code in the early 1970s. And he’ll tell you it has evolved quite a bit since then.
In the 1970s there were to be no strapless dresses, midriff shirts, open-toe shoes or skirts above the knee on girls.
Boys could not show bare arms. They had to were sleeved shirts and no hats were allowed in school.
Hats eventually inched their way off the list of banned clothing. But they’ve been back on the list again since the 1990s, when Capraro started finding weapons in jackets and hats.
The students held a walkout.
“But I stuck to my guns,” he said. “I couldn’t allow these weapons, like Ninja stars, boomerangs and pellet guns, to make their way into the schools like that. The board questioned me on it, and I dumped out a box filled with the weapons on a table. I said ‘This is the reason for the change in the dress code.’ That was enough for them.”
As for discipline, Capraro said things have really changed.
“Back when I first started here in the 1960s, the biggest problem with kids was smoking and cutting class,” he said. “Now when they get in trouble, it’s fighting. But, you know, I’m talking about the minority of kids, not the majority. Not then and not now. They’re basically great kids.”
That good in the kids comes from parents being there for their children, for the most part.
While parents of decades ago are memorialized as Ozzie and Harriet-type icons forever doting on well-groomed, polite kids, it is the parents of the millennium who Capraro will remember for their “tremendous connection with teachers and administrators.”
There is no comparison between the parents of the 1960s and the parents of today, he said.
“Today they are so focused on education and curriculum and making certain they are connected with the people teaching their kids,” Capraro said. “It’s really a testament to parents of today.”
And there were more students then than now, he said.
Despite all the talk about overcrowding in schools throughout the state, Edison had close to 15,000 students 40 years ago compared to the 13,500 now in the 17 schools.
And Capraro is proud of the growth through the decades, including the addition of several schools to the district.
Last year, the district added a full-day kindergarten, something Capraro always wanted to see.
“And the buildings are in good shape,” he said. “I’m proud of that. I’m proud of a lot of the accomplishments through the years and happy to have had a fulfilling career.”
But after January, this man who has a doctorate in education from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, may just be flipping burgers for the first time in his life and loving it.
“I’m going to spend some time in Cape Cod with my son, Joe” Capraro said. “He owns a little sandwich shop and café there. I’m sure I’ll be spending some time making some sandwiches and enjoying life there.”
Capraro also intends to do a little consulting work for school construction projects, because he “just can’t stay completely away from it.”
And his wife, Judith, a retired music teacher who spent her career in the Woodbridge school system, will be seeing a lot more of him.
So will his other kids, not the 13,500 students in the Edison schools, but Joe, Cindy and Suzanne.
Of course, the students can always visit him in his new home in Middletown, closer to the shore, he said.