Twin Rivers students arrive at first day of school

The Twin Rivers School District buses began rolling up to the Qulin, Fisk and Broseley campuses Tuesday morning, Aug. 22, letting out 854 students ranging from preschool to high school seniors.

The campuses at Qulin and Fisk have preschool through junior high grades while the high school is located at Broseley.

In Qulin, the pre-kindergarten through third grades occupy Qulin Elementary and had around 117 show up for the first day of classes. Qulin Middle School has fourth to eighth grades at another location and had 252 students.

In Fisk, pre-kindergarten through the eighth grade were on campus. They had an attendance of 321 on the first day.

While families waited in line to drop off students, buses dropped off more students and picked up others to take to Twin Rivers High School at Broseley.

Superintendent Rob Brown was all smiles when he visited Qulin Elementary School.

The numbers “today are up from last year,” said Brown, adding it is a “great beginning day.”

First in line at Qulin elementary were the Turner family. Parents Sarah and Tony were dropping off Thornn for his first day of kindergarten and big brother Talynn, who is going into third grade.

Sarah Turner said, “I’m a little sad about Thornn going to kindergarten.”

However, both parents were pleased the boys are on the same schedule this year. Tony explained when Thornn was in preschool, they boys had different times to be dropped off for classes.

The boys’ baby sister Tru, age 1, didn’t seem to mind when her older siblings left the van to visit with their friends.

Meanwhile, parents Shayna Pearson and Abby Clark agreed even though youngsters Elsie Pearson and Brayton Clark attended preschool and kindergarten last year, “still, it is hard” to let them move up in grades this year.

Eager students, not wanting to wait their turn in line to get to see their friends, were smiling and almost climbing out car windows. Some were dressed in brightly colored outfits for the first day of school were greeted with a royal welcome by smiling staff, and many of them were welcomed by name as they were assisted out of vehicles.

Qulin counselor Lisa Wilson said every day at least two staff members greet the students and help them out of the vehicles. On the first day of classes, the majority of families drop off and pick up their students. Afterwards, more students ride the buses.

Once inside, some kindergartners were eager to get started and others looked as if they might shed a few tears. Staff helped them find pegs to hang their backpacks on and escorted them to their desks. Many teachers took first day of school photos and placed name tags on each student before heading to the cafeteria for breakfast.

Preschool students were grouped together inside the building since their classes started a few minutes later. Lining up and pretending to be a train headed to eat helped some of the preschool students conquer their trepidation, but for others it took a little assistance to open the milk and juice cartons. Eating waffles and sausage with a spoon was not easy for some of them, but they soon realized their fingers worked great.

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