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This is Jenna Barry, the Medford Public Library on July 10, 2024, and I'm interviewing Peter Hanson the 2nd and Josh Hansen, and they're going to tell us a little bit about neighborhood schools. Yeah, so I, I grew up my first few years going to the neighborhood

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schools of the Franklin, um, the Swan, those were open at the time, and honestly, they were great. They were absolutely wonderful. We had Um, we had teachers, everyone knew the teacher's names, the teacher knew everyone's name. My, my principal, uh, Ms. Rizzo, I still remember her.

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She knew the name of every single child in the school. Um, the teachers knew everyone, they knew each other, um. They would pull together at certain times of, for example, when I was really young, 9/11 happened and all of the teachers pulled together and everyone made

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sure the kids were OK, but they weren't affected badly by what was going on. Um. Even in between the school, you'd see it whenever something happened. The resources, yeah, they were old neighborhood schools. The Franklin that I went to was literally 100 years old. Um, when

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it closed down, I think over 100 actually. Did you have all of the resources that the new ones have? No, you didn't, because it wasn't air conditioner break down a couple times. Everything broke down a couple times. Yeah, everything, and I read every single book in

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the school library by the time I was in 1st grade. But, um, at the same time. It was great. It was great because whatever you lacked in resources, you made up for with teachers, teachers who wanted to teach things, who wanted to do things, and who

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would, who would very willingly take out of their own time, their own pocket, their own whatever, to be able to teach you. So what changed after first grade? Like, how did the the school system change? It started to, uh, it was more efficient, so changed away

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from the school. Yeah, the neighborhood schools closed down it became convents. Um, And we got the ones that we know today, the rocks, the misotuck like that. I think McGlynn saying that had been. The same uh elementary and middle school that it had been. And it

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almost kind of flipped. You've got a lot more resources. You had bigger things, you know, we didn't, we never had a cafe cafeteria auditorium before. Um, but at the same time, with more kids in a space, the personal relationship wasn't quite as prominent as it was

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in the old neighborhood schools. There were a lot more kids to keep track of, and none of this is against the teachers. They, they had some great teachers, but they had a lot more to keep track of. They had more people to do it. They had

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more to oversee and more different things to coordinate and stuff like that. So, you know, it's just. More efficient is definitely a way I put it. And Josh, what about your I mean, I was in kindergarten, I can't remember if it was the first year that

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it opened, or the year after, but it was still brand new building at that point, and it had its problems. I, but I also started off with the same kindergarten teacher as Pete did, and She loved her kids. She was a great teacher. Um, I remember

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both of them, actually, the teacher and teacher's assistant, um. I think, I think they might still be around. I, they might be. They're not still teaching. I haven't heard from them for a while. Yeah, so the two of them, they were great, and I remember you

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did not get away with anything and Mrs. Hamrick's flat, not a single thing. I, I got one strike the entire year, it almost broke me. I was like, no. I didn't even understand the strike. I was just like, wait, what did I do? No, but they

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were, they were really, yeah, they're good. It's like they taught you how to behave, and I think every teacher after them um can give them a thank you when they had someone in their class, because you knew what was expected of you going into school. Absolutely.