Increasingly in education circles in Harford County, A.A. Roberty is the building where school administrators formulate policy and manage the bureaucracy that is responsible every year for educating about 40,000 students.
It wasn't that long ago, though, when a reference to the school system administration wasn't made by saying "over at the Roberty Building," but "over on Gordon Street." Today it's the location of what is increasingly called the "old Bel Air High School," but for a span of many generations of students and teachers, the late-1800s building on Gordon Street was the makeshift home of the school system's leadership.
And Roberty served as superintendent of Harford County Public Schools during his 18-year tenure in that position in the Gordon Street building. In the years since he retired in 1988, a lot has changed in the school system. In those 23 years, there have been four superintendents, quite a lot considering Roberty's time in that office.
Times have changed, and Roberty gathered with about two dozen of his former colleagues last week to talk about those changes and catch up. No doubt it wasn't all about the good old days. When Roberty was named superintendent, our schools had been integrated for only three years. Seems shocking now, but the previous school system administration dragged its feet on desegregation, delaying its full implementation until 1967.
Of course there's always more to talk about than the old Gordon Street building and its clanky plumbing or the legacy of racism. There was plenty of talk about colleagues, some now gone, and the times that make people regard the past as the good old days.
"He was absolutely wonderful to work with," Wally Oberender, a former colleague of Roberty's, said.
Perhaps it's Roberty's ability to inspire warm memories in his colleagues of an era that was rather turbulent and involved working in a less than inspiring building that made him a good choice as namesake for new school system headquarters. No doubt when a certain generation hears the words Roberty Building, images of the old Gordon Street headquarters spring to mind.
But times change and it's nice that Roberty and his colleagues still want to get together and socialize after all these years.