Longtime Kennedy teachers celebrate 25 years

When Mary Weber started teaching on Jan. 3, 1990, at the new Kennedy Junior High in Lisle, she figured she was in it for the long haul.

And she was right.

Snagging a teaching job at the newest junior high in Naperville Unit District 203 was quite an honor, because there were roughly 1,000 applicants for each position, she said.

So when Weber got one of those posts, she knew she wanted to stay. And stay she has - for 25 years.

"This was a destination district. Coming here was very impressive," the eighth-grade language arts teacher says. "You really felt special having been hired from so many qualified candidates."

On Monday, Weber and four other staff members celebrated a quarter-century of service at Kennedy as the school marked its 25th anniversary.

She and fellow teachers Sandra Rapcan, Maureen Reinert and Tony Scarpino, along with head custodian Bob Rechenmacher, have worked at Kennedy for as long as the school has been open. They were honored with loud rounds of applause from students gathered for an all-school photo in the gym.

As the students displayed commemorative pennants, the longtime staff members reminisced about what it was like to work on Kennedy's first day.

"It was just incredible, especially that first day," said Rechenmacher, a fifth-generation Naperville resident who has worked for 30 years in the district. "You had little-bitty sixth-graders in here thinking it was huge."

With less than a third of its current students, the school did seem massive - even to its teachers. So on the first day, faculty members helped the sixth-graders who came over from Meadow Glens Elementary explore before getting down to learning.

"We had a scavenger hunt with the kids because it seemed so big," said Reinert, who teaches eighth-grade language arts. "Now it seems so small."

The weather was the same the day the school opened to 236 sixth-graders as it was Monday for 940 kids in grades six through eight: frigid cold with snow on the ground - at least in the staff members' memory.

The building at 2929 Green Trails Drive was largely the same, too, although its western wing with the gym, music, art and home economics areas wasn't complete.

"I had PE class in the classrooms," said Scarpino, a PE teacher, department chairman and team leader who is the school's athletic director and head girls track coach.

Rechenmacher said the building itself has undergone few changes since then, with just the addition of trailers behind the school that house four classrooms.

But it has seen changes in testing and technology and the development of Kennedy Eagles traditions, such as reunions after students part ways for high school and then graduate from Naperville Central and Naperville North.

Some of those early students are now coming back as parents sending their own kids to Kennedy, and the school's longtime staffers have seen most of their original colleagues retire. Rechenmacher said Principal Brian Valek is the fourth to lead the school.

Built for roughly $10 million from 1988 to 1990, Kennedy is the newest junior high among five in District 203. The school is planning other 25th anniversary celebrations throughout the year.