WESTWOOD, N.J.—From the outside it was a mystery: Why were so many kids and young adults gathering at the bandstand at Veterans Memorial Park on Jan. 1? What was going on?
From the inside, it was obvious: Their English teacher, Barry Albert, had invited them: Every class he taught in the Westwood Regional School District since 1998.
His inscription in their yearbooks, a tradition going on 22 years, ended: “Remember: 1/1/20, WW gazebo at noon.”
So they came.
An estimated 140 former students, a few with spouses or parents tow, came to see if Mr. Albert would show and what the moment would bring. While they waited, they hugged and told stories and took photos.
It was cold out, so some folks waited in cars. Most staked out the bandstand. It was the reunion that had to be.
Noon. 12:15 p.m. A little later. Would it happen?
And then Barry Albert, the man of the hour, who last summer left teaching to become Humanities Department assistant principal of Westwood Regional Middle School, arrived with his wife, son, and daughter.
He improvised a few words from the bandstand—how excited he was to see everyone, and how lucky they all were to be there and that “We should always cherish the life we have”—and then he was a sunny face in the crowd.
“I remembered it! I’ve been holding onto this day for a long time,” said alumnus Chris Haffler, who graduated Westwood in 2004 and now teaches elementary school in Hackensack.
Haffler, who lay claim to being Mr. Albert’s oldest former student at the reunion, said he’d had three English classes with Mr. Albert: grade 7, grade 8 honors, and senior honors.
“I had him in the ‘90s,” Haffler boasted, laughing.
His sister, Julie Haffler, who graduated in 2009, is a hair stylist—Hair by Julie at Headlines by Pantana in Northvale—and she was giddy.
“Someone posted on Facebook this morning that it was the day so I ran to my yearbook [to confirm the date] and I was like, I have to go. I’ve been skeptical,” she said.
Township of Washington resident Vincent Arsi, Class of 2009, is a carpenter. He recalled Mr. Albert as “the open discussion guy. He could talk about anything, any day.”
Arsi added, “He wasn’t always by the book but I think that was better sometimes.”
One former student from the Class of 2005, now living in California, had wanted to represent, so he sent his father in his stead.
One of the set of friends from 2009—Bobby Galvan—now in North Carolina, checked in via Facebook with friends still living here: Today’s the day! Tell him hi from me.
“Great to see you,” Mr. Albert said often. Wherever he went, cameras were raised. The years swirled around him. Whoever spoke with him enjoyed his undivided attention.
“As we pulled up, I couldn’t believe the crowd that was waiting there. I was truly shocked and touched,” he told Pascack Press.
“About 20 years ago I started telling kids to meet me on this date, and here I am. I don’t know, I thought it would be cool—How cool would it be if they showed up with their families and kids and all this other stuff. I didn’t really think it was going to happen but it did,” he said.
But why this date? What did it mean?
“I figured everyone would be home from college or something. Jan. 1, 2020 was an easy enough date to remember,” he said.
He added, “After the first couple of years, I just kept inviting my classes on the last day of school. There were even years when I had a sibling of a former student and they asked about the date.”
Mr. Albert said, “I never thought it would truly be a big thing and never did I think the students would actually remember, let alone show up.”
He said, “I even had one parent, Mr. Newman, who came on behalf of his boys who couldn’t make it… I am so proud of these kids.”
In the weeks ahead of New Year’s Day, he said, he started getting emails from former students who wanted to know if the reunion was still on.
It was.
At the bandstand, one former student observed, “You had the ponytail!” (Another put in, “He was a rock star.”) “But you had longer hair. When we had him it was real long. I liked it! What happened?”
Current juniors Abby Hill, Ashley Francis, Michele Atkins, and Bella Tavaroni were there, beaming.
Skylar Keats, who graduated in 2017, is studying education at Bergen Community College. She was, and is, a huge fan of Mr. Albert.
Teresa Garofalow starts graduate school—Fordham University for special education—in two weeks.
“He was the most supportive teacher I ever had. I was a figure skater and it was very serious. I used to leave school early to go skate every single day, and he was the only teacher that was really supportive of my skating career,” she said.
“He was very invested in it. He always wanted to know how I was doing and everything. That really meant a lot to me,” she added.
Students recalled Mr. Albert’s love of Trader Joe’s Peanut Butter Cups, his free-for-all “demonstrations” of reverse psychology, and the character costumes he’d sometimes wear.
He was way big into critical thinking. He trusted his students and empowered them. He enjoyed them.
A local kid made good
Mr. Albert, a 1989 graduate of Westwood Regional High School, also attended Ketler School (K–6) and the old Middle School (7–8) on Third Ave. His father, Ron Albert, taught music in Westwood for 28 years.
“I was excited to begin my career at Westwood in 1996 as an 8th grade English teacher along with high school creative writing. I worked at the junior–senior high school, teaching most levels of English, communication arts, and creative writing,” he told Pascack Press.
He said he also coached field hockey for three years, directed the Junior Performing Arts Company for 10 years, and built the sets for the Woodington Players.
One former student, taking in the gray day, admonished: “You had us on the hook for a little while. We didn’t know if you’d show.”
Another said, “This is a testament to what kind of teacher he was. What other teachers have all these students show up?”
Still another: “What other teachers would want to have all these students show up?”
He said of coming on board in July 2019 as an assistant principal at the middle school, “As a longtime Westwood resident, I couldn’t be happier to give back to my community and work with the many excellent educators in our district.”
He said he’s thrilled that this September the Westwood Regional Middle School is adding the 8th grade for the first time, giving that class another year with their age group before having them move on to Westwood Regional Jr./Sr. High School on Ridgewood Road in the Township of Washington.
“That’s awesome, the [ongoing] construction. I always call it Ketler though,” he said of the former Ketler Elementary School, which for years pulled duty as the cramped middle school.
“It is Ketler! It’s always going to be Ketler. They should have called it the Ketler Middle School,” Julie Haffler said.
Passing the torch
Asked which of his own teachers made the most lasting impression on him, Mr. Albert, 49 this month, immediately named Scott Tireman, who still teaches in Ramsey.
“He was maybe my 9th or 10th grade social studies teacher and a coach that I had [in wrestling and football], and he knew what was going on with the high school students. He was connected,” Mr. Albert said.
“I would say you were the exact same. You were connected,” Chris Haffler said.
After approximately 40 minutes, the crowd thinned out.
“I think it was fun,” said Mr. Albert. “I think it was also that you make meaningful relationships. I don’t know what draws people together. I was just excited to see if people would remember and what they were doing with their lives.”
Naturally, another reunion is set.
Mr. Albert explained, “I just told them, meet me in another 20 years. So I set the new date: Jan. 1, 2040. But then one of them said, ‘We have to save the world first, and then we’ll do it.’”
He left no doubt: “Noon.”