Jitters, excitement for students on the first day of school

Several hundred students across Saskatchewan enjoyed the first day of a school in a brand-new building.

There were eighteen new schools that opened Tuesday, which came with its own set of challenges.

“We just had a bell go off ten minutes early, so there’s lots of phone calls and just trying to be a director of traffic,” said Elishia Larwood, administrator at St.Kateri Tekakwitha Catholic in Regina. “It has been a lot busier than it normally is on the first day of school.”

The uncertainty didn’t just extend to Larwood, but those in Grade 8 who wouldn’t normally be as apprehensive on the first day of school.

“I got lost already, I was using the washroom and I wandered downstairs somehow and I saw some guy and he said, ‘what are you doing’, and I said, ‘I’m looking for the Catholic side’ and he replied, ‘this is the public side,'” Rhys Antwi explained.

The joint-use schools house not just a public and a cCatholicschool within the walls, but in some cases, are French-immersion as well.

Despite the nerves, there was plenty of excitement by the time the end of day bell rang.

“I love it, everything is just so new, coming from a school that was like 100 years old, everything is just so new and exciting,” Grade 5 student Aiden Thompson said.

It won’t be clear until the end of the month how many students are enrolled at the joint-use school, but one Catholic school has five kindergarten classes.