Bart Moroney has been a member of the Poly community since 1981, working as a teacher in many areas, including the science and math departments. Currently, he teaches 10th Grade Chemistry and a Geology science elective. Moroney was also the Poly track coach for decades. This year marks Moroney’s forty-fourth and last year working as a member of the Poly community, as he will be moving into retirement next year.
Moroney began working at Poly in the fall of 1981 as the first faculty member hired right out of college. Most teachers at Poly taught cross divisions, meaning teachers would often teach multiple subjects in different grades and work as advisers for one or more extracurricular activities. When Moroney first arrived at Poly, he was a seventh-grade teacher of life science and a ninth-grade teacher of Biology. In addition, Moroney coached both Boys’ and Girls’ Winter and Spring Track.
When Moroney arrived at Poly, he stated it “was very much a ‘country day’ philosophy… in my case, it was coaching and teaching, while others would do the yearbook or paper.” Moroney explained that teachers would invest a lot of their time into many of the extracurriculars students were interested in and a part of.
Moroney was dedicated to the track teams at Poly throughout the winter and spring seasons. Moroney reflected that at the time he began working, the sports requirements were “if you were a student in high school, you had to be on a sports team all three seasons.”
In addition, 1981 was the year “the first girls to have gone through the [Poly] high school graduated,” said Moroney. Historically, Poly was an all-boys school, but when girls were integrated into the high school, there were not enough students for Poly’s high school girls track team. So, instead, Moroney recruited girls from his seventh-grade science class to join the high school team.
During the winter track season, Moroney often times had his team practice outside in the cold. “We used to build a board track out back and then run on it. It was obviously cold and miserable, but [there] were like 50 kids on it because if you got cut from basketball or didn’t want to swim, there weren’t a lot of options,” he recalled.
In Moroney’s tenth year teaching at Poly, he met his wife, Sabina Laricchia, who is a current member of the mathematics faculty at Poly. Laricchia “was teaching at a school that was actually a rival of Poly’s, and it closed, and she got a job here,” Moroney said. “I remember, Ms. Laricchia and I were dating, we had the students fooled… and [when] we got engaged – they announced the engagement in chapel.”
Moroney has also made decade-long friendships with colleagues of the Poly community. Harry Bernieri – a member of the history faculty – was a student at Poly when Moroney arrived as a teacher. “I coached him, and he was a freshman when I came here… so Mr. Bernieri and I have known each other since 1981. First, he ran for me, then he came back, and we taught together; he has taught my kid, and I have taught his.”
English Faculty Member Gerry Stone arrived at Poly five years after Moroney began teaching. “I’ve been his roommate,… he was in my wedding party and coached my son,” Moroney reminisced. Moroney was also a tenth-grade dean alongside Poly’s director of DEIB, Erika Freeman, for twenty years. “It’s connections like that I have had forever.”
As Moroney looks back on the more than four decades of his time within the Poly community, this year is a time for him to recall many memories. “The good thing about my retirement year is I am kind of remembering back on the different years, and as people are finding out, they are starting to chime in with memories I have forgotten.” With so many stories and anecdotes, Moroney says what he will miss most is “by far the people; the colleagues I teach with, but especially the students, because the students are awesome.”
Retirement plans are also already in the works for Moroney. “I’m a big bird watcher, and fall is obviously one of the best times to go… as a teacher, you can’t really go on vacation when you want. I grew up in New England; I love leaf touring, so in the fall, I intend to do a lot of leaf peeping and a lot of bird watching.” Moroney deeply appreciates travel and intends to embark on many trips with family members. “I will do some travel to some places that Ms. Laricchia… does not want to go to… Alaska is one of my big bucket list locations, so I am going to go there with my younger brother, who is going to retire… Then I am going to go to Hawaii with my son who is graduating college.”
Moroney’s role as a teacher is, in his words, “the job that is my life.” He continued, “I never wanted to be a teacher. I didn’t really like my teachers… I was lucky enough that I fell into the job, I changed my mind at the last minute and could not imagine ever having become anything else in my life.”
