BY KEVIN SHALVEY

A procession of 340 McKelvie Middle School eighth-graders became the last graduating class – and the first freshmen to have their own high school in Bedford.

Because of the new Bedford High School and Ross A. Lurgio Middle School, McKelvie is reformatting to be an intermediate school, after 43 years as a middle school.

Donna Dennis remembers sitting in classes as an eighth- grader at McKelvie Middle School in 1986.

“I remember particularly getting extra help in algebra from my teacher, Kurt Lombard,” said Dennis.

With his help, Dennis finally understood algebra. And after high school, she went on to study at the University of New Hampshire and became a math teacher.

“So, all that stuff when he said, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get it,’” worked, she said.

Dennis returned to McKelvie, too, and has taught there for 10 years, the last seven as the technology integration teacher.

Dennis will now move to the Ross A. Lurgio Middle School next year with more than 65 other McKelvie staffer members, said Assistant Principal Ed Joyce. About 35 staff members will stay at the intermediate school.

On Tuesday, June 19, teachers and movers were scurrying around the building moving computers, desks and books.

In the library, staff are sorting the more than 9,000 titles, some of which will be sent to Lurgio for the fall.

Other books will be brought up from the elementary school for the fifth-graders.

In the fall, new library software will allow easier inter-school loans, said Librarian Kathy Fencil, who will stay at McKelvie next year.

“We now have a district solution to sharing these,” she said.

But, some books won’t make the cut because they’re outdated. The average copyright date of the 9,000 books at McKelvie is 1987, she said.

Of her 27 years teaching in Bedford, Principal Jan Raudonis spent 26 at McKelvie. Raudonis retired at the end of the school year after seven years as principal.

“I’m going to miss the students and the parents and all the staff,” she said.

Raudonis taught art before becoming principal and said she’ll get back into printmaking and watercolors next year. And, of course, she’ll play golf and travel, she said.

Marianne O’Loan has been a science and math teacher at McKelvie for five years. She will stay on to teach at the intermediate school, which will be “hugely different,” she said.

Because the students will be only fifth- and sixth-graders, the culture will change next year, she said.

School secretaries Helen Binette and Edith Torrisi have been at McKelvie for 22 and 23 years, respectively. They have seen three principals and five assistant principals come through the school.

“There’s never a dull moment,” Torrisi said.

“When you’re working in a middle school, there’s always something interesting, every day,” Binette said.
Both Binette and Torrisi will move to Lurgio in the fall.

For Amy Jalbert, who has taught science at the school for six years, the switch to Lurgio will be a big change. The school will be starting about an hour later than McKelvie did, she said.

So, is it sad for Dennis to be leaving McKelvie after a stint in the student’s and teacher’s chair?

“Yes and no,” she said.

She said most of the teachers who taught her have retired.

“It’s kind of a new generation that have come in and taken the reigns. It’s different, not a bad different, but different,” she said.