Today, as family, friends, colleagues, and former students gather to honor Frank J. Gargiulo, we remember a true giant in Hudson County education.
Mr. Gargiulo believed deeply that interest drives learning — that when young people are given the freedom to explore, create, question, and follow what sparks something inside them, education becomes powerful.
He would often tell the story of the grasshopper in the jar. At first, the grasshopper jumps as high as it can, but every time it jumps, it hits the lid. Eventually, it stops jumping so high. And even when the lid is removed, the grasshopper still doesn’t jump out — not because it can’t, but because it has learned there is a limit.
Mr. Gargiulo understood that education should never be the lid. It should be the place where the lid comes off.
One beautiful example is this video, produced years ago at High Tech by junior Lai-San Ho. At the time, she was originally studying medical science, but she also took video production. She went on to study science at Tufts University, but she could never quite shake the filmmaking bug. Today, she is a working union editor in Hollywood, with credits including NBC’s This Is Us.
That is Mr. Gargiulo’s legacy in motion.
Not just buildings. Not just programs. Not just titles.
A belief in students.
A belief in possibility.
A belief that the thing a young person is interested in might just become the thing that changes their life.
Thank you, Mr. Gargiulo, for building a place where students could discover who they were meant to become. Your impact will continue through every student, teacher, artist, builder, and dreamer who walked through the doors of Hudson County Schools of Technology.
Rest in peace.
