‘This year is going to be the best’: Frontier, Mahar students start school year

With summer coming to an end, students at Frontier Regional School in South Deerfield and Ralph C. Mahar Regional School in Orange made their way through the fog and morning dew on Wednesday for the first day of classes.

At Frontier, Principal George Lanides said it feels good to have the teachers and students’ energy back in the building.

“It’s great to have everybody back together,” Lanides said as he greeted the teenagers walking into the school.

A few Frontier seniors celebrated the first day by painting “senior” across the rearview windows of their vehicles using neon pink and blue paint, and sporting matching decorated shirts. Others honked their horns and played songs like “Starships” by Nicki Minaj as they wheeled into the parking lot.

“I’m looking forward to graduating,” said senior Willa Grippo as she walked with her friend, fellow senior Autumn Casagrande. “It’s exciting.”

For Isla Sparrow, senior year means acting in the theater program’s “Mean Girls” fall musical and helping direct the spring play, a milestone she has been looking forward to since freshman year.

Besides theater, Sparrow is also excited to play the clarinet in the marching band again.

“The first few minutes [of school] have been great,” she said with a grin on her way into the building.

Along with “Mean Girls,” fellow actor and senior Addie Ehle said she cannot wait for softball season to play her “favorite sport ever.”

Like other seniors, Ehle’s first day of school started at 5 a.m., when she woke up early for the “Senior Sunrise.” According to Ehle, the outing involved the school’s senior class and about 200 munchkins from Dunkin’ Donuts.

“This year is going to be the best,” she said.

In Orange, hundreds of students poured out of school buses and private vehicles to start the 2026-2027 academic year, with most greeted by Principal Scott Hemlin.

“It looks like they’re excited. I mean, it’s like riding a bike, you know? The kids come back and they get right into their routines,” he said outside the entrance before the first bell rang. “They’re all in there, chitchatting. They’re seeing kids that they haven’t seen in a few months. It goes pretty smoothly.”

The principal mentioned the school will try easing into a cellphone ban. He said phones will be placed in secure boxes in classrooms from first bell to final bell, at 2:05 p.m.

“We have our whole procedures that are set up. We’re going to meet with the kids today, in-class meetings,” Hemlin said. “It’s going to be a big change for a lot of kids, but we … anticipate that the majority of the kids will be able to settle in with that.”

He said cellphones are an enormous distraction for young students.

“It’s going to be a learning curve,” he said. “But we’ll get through it.”