 Ms. Mernick, Ms. Kabelka, and Ms. Moderna, thank you for agreeing to make an interview. So first, I'd like to ask each of you a bit about your background. I'll start with Ms. Mernick. So what was your maiden name? Oh, my maiden name was Nigro, N-I-G-R-O-N-I-Gro. And did you grow up in Arlington, or? I did. I grew up in Arlington. There were six kids in my family, and my parents also grew up in Arlington. So we have a long legacy of N-I-G-R-O-Ns in this town. And what about your family? So your parents live in Arlington, but what about your grandparents? My grandparents, one grew up in Lawrence, and one grew up in Charlestown. Then a couple of the others grew up in Arlington. They started a family business, so a lot of Arlington roots. So what elementary school did you attend? I went to Stratton. So what year did you enter the Otteson? Great question. Let me check my notes. 85, 86. So when did you graduate? I graduated high school in 1991. Did you begin in sixth, seventh, eighth, or ninth? When I went here, it was just seventh and eighth. It was called Otteson Junior High, and I did. So sixth grade was still at Stratton back then. We had sixth grade camp, whereas your generation always had fifth grade camp at the end of elementary school. We had it in sixth. And what about the grade in the Otteson? It was just eighth grade, seventh and eighth. We always had a canopy lake trip last day of school. So how did you get to the Otteson? Did you walk? Did your parents drive you? I walked, and I lived closer to the Winchester Golf Course side of Arlington, so it was a long walk. And walked most days with a group of friends, mostly friends, until they weren't very nice, but walked with a group of people. What about the days with Harshwood, like Snow Snow? Well, I had older, so I'm the fifth of six kids. So I do recall a couple of times with my older sisters were home from college or something. They might drive me on a cold day. But I don't think my parents really cared too much. So I was like, nope, you've got feet, they work. You're walking. So, Ms. Kripalka, what was your video? My maiden name was Devlin, D-E-B-L-I-N. And did you grow up in Arlington? I did, yes. I lived in North Cambridge until I was three years old, and then my parents bought a house in Arlington and we moved here. What about the rest of your family? So I have an older sister and a younger brother. We all grew up in Arlington. My parents both grew up in North Cambridge. My husband also grew up in Arlington, and his family goes back like four generations Arlington, his parents, his grandparents, his great-grandparents. So did you attend elementary school in Arlington? I did, I went to Pierce. And when I was finishing Pierce, my parents moved to a different house over by the Bishop School. So, but I still went to the Odyssey. So did you attend Bishop? I didn't, no. I finished at Pierce and then we moved and I came to the Odyssey. But back when I was starting junior high, there were two junior highs and four elementary schools went to the Odyssey Junior High. And three elementary schools went to the Gibbs Junior High. So Bishop was one of the elementary schools that went to the Gibbs. But those students, because they lived in the center of the town, they had a choice. So I chose to go to Odyssey because that's where all my Pierce friends were going. So what year did you enter? 1987, 88. And then my eighth grade year was 88, 89. So I left Odyssey in 1989. So how old were you at the time? I was, well, my birthday's in June. So I was probably 13, just about to turn 14. And did you begin in sixth, seventh, or eighth? Seventh, seventh. So Ms. Murnick and I were right around the same time. So it was a seventh and eighth grade junior high. We did sixth grade at our elementary schools and then came to the Odyssey. Did all elementary schools have sixths? They did, K through sixth, yep. And what grade were you when you graduated? Year eight. So I was here for seventh and eighth, left here in eighth, and went to the high school for ninth, 10th, 11th, and 12th. And how did you get to the Odyssey? How did you come here? So I live really far, pretty much in Winchester. So my dad would drive me in the morning most days. So Ms. Murnick, what was your name? My maiden name is Charis. So K-A-R-R-A-S. And did you grow up in Arlington? Yes, I did. So what about your parents, your family? My dad was from Greece. He emigrated when he was 25. My mom was born here. And we lived in Arlington our entire lives. So what elementary school did you go to? I also went to Stratton School. Did you and Ms. Murnick know each other? I know of her family very well, yes. So what year did you come to the Odyssey? I came to the Odyssey in 1978. So you would be in how old? So if I was in sixth grade, I would say about 12. And how old were you when you finally graduated? Probably about 14. So again, the same when I was here. It was only seventh and eighth grade. So how did you come to the Odyssey? Walked. Did you live closer? No, I lived near the Ms. Murnick's family. And we lived up by Stratton. So we had to walk down the hill to get here. But then on the way home, we had to climb the hill. So you all lived near Winchester, correct? Yes. So now we have some questions about the nuts involved such a building. I'll ask each person one question, but if someone wants to add an answer or has a different answer, please jump in. So Ms. Murnick, when you were a student here, how big was the building compared to that? I guess it was smaller because the whole addition part, I guess, were there two additions? I think it was a lot smaller. I think when we were here, the bottom part of the addition was there, so where the blue gym is in the music room. Right, but everything above that was not. So where the eighth grade built classes are now. So has there been any sense of renovation to the building? Yes, so I remember when you, I think the cafeteria, I've seen some yearbook pictures. That's how I knew. There were some pictures of this big circular window. Yeah, so the cafeteria had these really big circular windows that are different. I don't know what this one is. I guess that's the music room. And then where the seventh and eighth grade hallways are now, those two floors were added on. So Ms. Grafalka, what were grades like? Like getting grades? Or what grades in the school? Like, did you guys get report cards? Oh, yes. How did you view your grades? So you never saw your grades until you never saw your average grade for the term until the term was over. So you would do an assignment and you would get that assignment back and it would be graded. But there was no such thing as a portal. You could never see what your average was. You could go see a teacher and ask them, but there wasn't a constant awareness of where your grade was at for the term. And then at the end of the term, so similar four terms and then a year grade at the end, at the end of the term, you would get a paper report card that the grades had been added with a typewriter. And they would type in the class and it would have the grade that you got for that class. And they were the same letter grades that we have now. A minus B plus C. Do you think the grades were stricter back then? Do you think nowadays kids get more slack with their grades? I think so in some ways. In some ways, maybe not. The curriculum has changed and gotten a lot more difficult in some areas, but I do feel like teachers were strict and held you accountable for your work a little bit more than the COVID times. Yeah, I would say it was definitely more strict. Teachers were more strict, grades were more strict. And actually, I teach eighth grade. The transition from eighth grade to the high school was definitely more strict. If you wanted to take an honors level class at the high school, you had to take a test and get a certain grade on that test to take honors at the high school, where that doesn't happen anymore. So Miss Bonnaruna, how long were the school there? Six, seven hours? I think it was 8 to 230, would you say? Yeah. And how many periods were there? That's a good question. Anywhere between six and seven. I don't remember. Right? Six and seven? Seven. So I feel like you always had your four subjects, plus a language visit and a special, like that. That's very similar to what we have now. So Miss Bonnaruna, what was the library like? There were more in there. Not? I mean, the structure, the layout was very similar to now. I believe the card catalog machine was not a machine. Unit was right around here. And that's where you would need to go and look through the paper cards, using the Dewey decimal system and find the number to write down on a little piece of paper and go search for a book. So it was, yeah, a card catalog system was pretty much all that we used. I think there may have been a little one computer at some point, right, that you could maybe look up a book with that, like they have with the library. But it was very different. Well, and remember, this was open. Remember the open clusters? The open clusters? Right up above. They had what was called an open cluster, where there were no walls to the classrooms. So in these classrooms up here, it was just like it was completely open over into the media center. So when you walked in the main lobby, I remember there being a staircase going up. So the entrance to the media center, instead, there was a staircase right there that went up into all these areas that were open. That was the open cluster. And then the closed were the ones where our classrooms are now. Where the seventh grade is. Yeah, where the seventh grade is now. And they were just closed classrooms. So, Mr. Palca, I know Ms. Print had mentioned, like a singular computer where you could look up books, but like nowadays we have tons of computers. But what did you guys have? Did you have any typewriter or was it just? I don't remember using a typewriter, but I'm sure they were here somewhere. We did have, when I was here, we had a computer class. It was taught by a man named Roger Neal. And you would go to computer class, like you would go to fax or music and learn how to use a computer. Because it was so new back then. Nobody had their own computers. Very few families had computers at their houses. So you would just come and you would have a class where they taught you how to use a computer. And just for context, because I remember that class with Mr. Neal too. I don't know what we would have ever done on that computer. So if this was in seventh grade, I remember distinctly seeing the first email ever being sent by one of my professors, my freshman year of college. So that was being 1991, 92. And it was like a lesson, you know, year I'm hitting the hit send and it was sent to somebody in California and we all just watched. We're like, wow, like, why would you need to do that? So Ms. Monorona, was there a dress group for students? That's a very good question. I don't know. I remember we wore very casual clothes. Jeans were huge. Jordash and Levi's. Probably sweatshirts. I don't know, do you guys remember? Champion sweatshirts. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Guest jeans, champion sweatshirts. Yes, yes. There was definitely a dress. There wasn't a uniform, but there was definitely a dress code. Certain things that they didn't want you to wear. But, and we wore a lot of sweatshirts, you know, zipped or pullover. Yeah. So Ms. Monorona, what, like, foreign languages? I took Spanish. I know, I think there was Spanish, French, Latin, the three that I remember. Was it only those three? I think so, yeah. There was no Mandarin. They didn't have any exploratory options. So, you took your language both years. And you just, what about the cafeteria? Did you eat lunch at school or did you go home to eat lunch? We ate lunch at school. The cafeteria, the structure of the cafeteria was the same, even the way you'd walk in to get lunch. It was the exact same setup. Couple of things that looked different. The wall where the screen is now was an enormous mural, which they actually just took down a few years ago. And that was the same mural that was here when I went to school here. And the windows were these enormous circular windows. That's the picture in the year that Ms. Murnick showed. And when they did the renovations at the end of the 90s, probably 10 years after I had left here, they removed those windows and put in this rectangular windows that are in the cafeteria now. What was the school looks like? It was very similar. You had options, you know, whereas coming from elementary school, there was one lunch that you could pick each day and pizza was Friday. When we got here, you had different options each day. Even the snack station, like where the snack station is now, is that open? Which one? I don't know. But the snack bar, that was in the same place. So if you just wanted to get cookies or a juice box or something, you could go there. So Ms. Murnick, would you like to expand on what kind of food is there? I don't remember. I know. My memory is spotty on the food as well. Yeah. See, I think it was similar. You know, I remember the pizza. Probably I remember, you know, we had choices of cold or hot. Mm-hmm. Yes. Good question. So Ms. Murnick, was there a like outdoor recess? And what would you guys do during recess? I don't remember any recess. No. I don't remember how long lunch was either. I'm guessing it was longer than 22 minutes or 18 minutes. If they probably gave us more time back then, but I don't know. Did recess stop in your elementary school? I think so, yep. Like all the grade was the last recess. So I think six was the last recess. Yeah. We have some more questions on like, how the school is going to go. So Ms. Kappalka, who was the principal and like when was he here, or that? So I'm not sure, his name was Mr. Mahoney. I'm not sure when he started, but he was here for both years that I was here. The interesting thing that, for you too? Yeah. So the interesting thing that happened with my year is my eighth grade year, which was 1988, 89, was the last year that the Gibbs was open. So my class of students was the last year that went to the Gibbs Junior High. And then Mr. Mahoney retired and a man named Mr. Lamero, who was the principal when I first started working here, he was the principal at the Gibbs Junior High and he came when they merged the two schools, he came here to become the principal. So was there an assistant principal's or was it just numbers? There was one assistant principal, his name was Mr. Fortunato. He was also here when I started working 10 years later. Was he there for you too? So that, again, that was back in the late 70s. So they were here that long. Mr. Mahoney, do you remember who you had as a principal? Yes, same ones, Mr. Mahoney, Mr. Fortunato and Mr. Mahoney, who teaches here now is the grandson of the Mr. Mahoney. So we have, so that was his grandfather, the teacher who's in seventh grade. And how many students would be in this typical class? And like, what was your smallest class supposed to be? Look at those class pictures in here and count them, actually. I think it was pretty 20th, yeah. I do remember that the structure of the classroom though was a lot, it was very, very standard from room to room. Rows of desks, not a lot of clusters of desks together, really, it was more strict with seating. So, Mr. Palco, what did students often get in trouble for doing? Like, what were the typical punishments for those students? Well, I never got in trouble. What's that? I'm trying to think. I mean, I'm sure there were students that skipped classes. I don't ever remember any fighting or anything like that, like major things. I know there was a little area off the back, softball fields, actually it's the front, up the stairs that they called the shoe that kids would go and hang out before and after school, but I don't really remember. The shoe crew, the shoe crew, yeah. I don't remember kids getting in trouble. I don't remember what, right, but what they called it back then is demerits. So, if you had a violation of some sort, you got a demerit. Yeah, I wrote that to a demerit in his attention. I got a demerit one time. Poking the person in front of me, like we were at an assembly in the cafeteria and I don't know if like a bag fell off or, nothing bad, but just like something that I wasn't supposed to, I was just supposed to be sitting there watching the presentation and it was my favorite teacher that gave it to me and I was so crushed. I was like, how could you possibly do that? Who was it? Mr. Boswell. Like he was just the greatest and probably had to set an example that like, you know what, you're misbehaving, you're supposed to be sitting here paying attention to the presentation and I wasn't, I was goofing around. So Ms. Monarona, did schools have hard drills? Did anything ever scary happen? Ms. Murnick could. I have one example. Oh, for that one, I have a couple, but I remember being in seventh grade when the Challenger Space Shuttle exploded and I was in sewing class. I think this ties into one of your later classes, questions about classes. Sewing or cooking, it was down the fax area and they wheeled in TVs on carts so that we could all watch the aftermath, I guess, of that and I just remember that. It wasn't here necessarily, but it was a big event in history and time that happened and we were in seventh grade. The other notable, I think, experience was when my older sisters were here and they're a couple of years, a year older than you maybe, there was a big walk out that the students staged a walk out so all the students to just leave the school and refuse to come and protest and walk out of the building at the same time because, and this might have been, there was definitely a time when they were renovating the high school, right? That the ninth grade. So that when I was in ninth grade, we were coming here to do our classes. Okay, so it might have been that year so they had to shorten, so at the high school, they could only have enough room for maybe three grades, right? So the ninth grade was sent back here for a year and I have a feeling it was that year that they had learned about some asbestos being in the building. Asbestos, asbestos, unsafe fibers like in the insulation. So it's not always harmful unless it gets airborne and loose and yes, inhaled. So I think there were a lot of people wanting to, you know, state their case that they wanted some clean air to breathe in this building, so. And how did those events affect like the arrest of the school then? I don't know too much about that since that was my sister's year, but I think when there was like, for instance, the Challenger Explosion or if there was some big event, I think it just made everybody come together in a strange way, you know? Maybe it unified us a little bit. Miss Murnick, was it hard to like, earn high grades or like, and what happened when a student earned poor grade? Well, I guess it depends on your parents, right? How you got treated at home for poor grades. I don't know, I never got any sort of failing grades or anything, but I think most kids and most of my friends too, if you had parents with high expectations of you to try to earn A's and B's. And they used to have honor roll, remember? They did, they posted it in the paper. Yeah, if you had all A's and B's, you made honor roll and you got your name in the paper. If you had more A's than B's, then you made first honors. And if you had more B's than A's, then you made second honors. And Miss Kruppel, were there assemblies and what would assemblies be? What would they talk about, what would they do? I don't know. I mean, I'm sure there were assemblies. I can't think of one that offhand that I went to, you know, that sparks a memory. What we must have had. That they have been impactful. I do remember since I got in trouble during that one assembly that it was in the cafeteria. So I guess they hadn't started using the gyms yet and setting up the chairs that way, like we do. Not that you know what that's like since we don't have assemblies now because we can't be that close contact, right? So Miss Monterey, did junior high west or did you have a sports team like when you were here? We had intramurals, which was, you know, after school like a club. And we also had just like Mr. Bartz, if you know, Mr. Bartz has left his legacy. He had hockey in the morning. He had softball. So similar to what it has been. We did not have a team. We just, you know, had activities that were an extension of school. To spark other fond memories, I'd like to ask each of you to answer these questions. So I'll start with the subject while at the U.S. And you at least share it with us. I think my favorite was probably social studies because I loved the teacher and we got to do a lot of coloring. So where was that? Miss Monterey, would you like your favorite subject? My favorite subject was also social studies and I had many of the same teachers, Mr. Boswell, Miss Martinetti. You know, I love science. I think we had Mr. Tobin, yeah. I think he was, I can't remember. He was history, history, yeah. So I love social studies and history. Do you have any favorite memories from those teachers? Just, yeah, I mean, they left an impact because, you know, I remember them fondly. Mr. Boswell used to throw tootsie rolls. Yeah, he used to have fun. Fond memories? I can't think of anything in particular. I just remember, like, I remember enjoying all of my classes. You know, as I got older, I remember people saying, well, no one really remembers middle school because it's not the best time. I mean, I always remembered all of my teachers' names and how much I enjoyed it here. It's probably why I became a middle school teacher. Not me. I actually had a terrible time here. My seventh grade year was one of the worst years of my life. Teachers were okay, but I think with so much socially going on in my life, I wasn't as focused as I could have been. I do remember my teachers being patient, but just had a lot of friend drama. It wasn't very pleasant. But, you know, I came back to teach seventh grade and repay, I guess, for the rest of my life. Pay it forward. Did you participate in any extracurricular activities at the school? Besides getting bullied. I was in student council. I was, too. You had a newspaper or, I don't know what they call it. I mostly did sports, and I don't think they had sports teams here, so it was like rec sports that we played in the gym. What about student council? So, in junior high, do you remember having any painful memories, Mr. Falco? Not really. I think the hardest part, Ms. Murnick was saying a little bit the hardest part about coming in here in seventh grade is even though it was only four elementary schools, there was a lot of jockeying for who was going to be and what friend group. And that was really tough to navigate as a 12-year-old girl, you know, and try to figure out what your new friend group is going to be. What about you, Ms. Murnick? Any painful memory is a bad experience. No, I just, you know, one memory I have is that there were, you know, socially different groups, but we were really inclusive with everyone. It didn't matter if you were the the jocks or the rats. Yeah, so we were overall a good friendly class. So, what about any positive or other just fun memories from the others? I mean, my memories when we were younger was also like what we did on weekends. Every Friday night we used to go ice skating. We used to go to the Boys and Girls Club for fun. We used to go to the Allington Center, but the thing is we walked everywhere. Yep, walk up and down Mass Ave. And without a phone. So, you couldn't call people. You couldn't call people, right? Free skate on Friday nights was a big one for middle school. Yeah. So, the biggest and most important question of all, what do you think made the autism special? Let's start with this one. I don't know. I think I say by eighth grade I found I found my friend match that helped me continue to navigate and then I felt more, I guess, settled here. And it was enough to then, you know, however many years later, make me accept a job here and then decide to spend all of my adult years. I think what made autism special back then is it really was a middle school before schools were called middle schools. So, typical junior highs they didn't have exploratory where you'd go and you'd learn cooking and sewing in a fax class and then you'd do music and then we had graphics, which actually that was our classes with Mr. Richardson. So, it was kind of behaving, having teams, you know, like 810s, 820s, like having those teams, that was really a middle school mentality before we were actually ever a middle school and I think that kind of it was way ahead of its time. Both the Gibbs and the autism junior high were ahead of its time and also like Miss Murnick, I think my friend group, I was just saying to these these guys before we started that my friends that I met here at the beginning of 7th grade, I still talk to almost every day now. I think, you know, what left an impact on me was that we got to choose. I'm pretty sure entering into middle school you could choose, did you want to be in the open cluster or the closed cluster? So, it gave us some ownership and to be in a closed cluster it was more traditional. You know, it was more structured whereas the open you had to be able to learn, you know, with a lot of distractions. So, they gave us some choice, which mm-hmm, right? Yeah. Well, thank you guys so much for coming here and we really appreciate hearing about the school. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you.