TURNERS FALLS — Senior year started around two hours and 20 minutes early for the Turners Falls High School Class of 2027 on Thursday.
With the 2026-2027 school year officially kicking off at 7:50 a.m. at Turners Falls High School and Great Falls Middle School, 25 of the 38 members of the Class of 2027 defied traditional “senioritis” stereotypes and arrived at the building at 5:30 a.m. to share one more summer moment before beginning the school year – taking part in a senior sunrise.
According to Jessica Vachula-Curtis, a teacher at the high school and advisor for the Class of 2027, this tradition has been going on since at least 2016.
“I’m really excited; this class to me is very special, really for a lot of reasons,” Vachula-Curtis said. “My daughter is in this class … but also I’ve known a lot of these kids since they were in kindergarten or preschool. They’ve kind of had a tough time of it over the years, a lot of people have left the class for various reasons, so it’s been really important for me as their class advisor to try to help unite them because I think they’re … a really fantastic class.”
Available to the students was a plethora of donuts from Dunkin’, along with breakfast sandwiches prepared in the concessions stand at the football field. As the clouds in the sky began to turn a light pink, students and staff migrated from the parking lot onto the outdoor track to get a better view of the changing sky.
For members of the Class of 2027, this was the first of what class officers hope is many bonding experiences between the 38 seniors. Class Vice-President Keira Feeley said that while she hasn’t spent her entire academic career in the district, unity among classmates was a goal of hers and other class officers this upcoming school year.
“Being with these people that I’ve been with since eighth grade, it’s really been good to see how we’ve grown up,” Feeley said. “This year, our biggest plan [as class officers] is to join together and work more as a group and do more fun activities together.”
The clouds didn’t stay pink for long, and the students didn’t spend much more time on the track. Assistant Principal Adam Graves joked that students might take naps in their cars before the official start of senior year, but most students, if they weren’t eating a donut or a breakfast sandwich, were using chalk or paint to customize their parking spots.
Co-President of the Class of 2027 Addison Talbot said that growing up in the district has allowed her to see her classmates grow over time.
“I’ve watched a lot of these people grow, and watched our class grow,” Talbot said. “It’s really amazing to see how people have changed over the years. I’m hoping to increase class bonding so that we’re closer, because I feel like that’s a monumental part of senior year.”
Acknowledging that it was weird to wake up before the sun did, Feeley said that she’s a pretty deep sleeper, so she was shocked when she woke up and her phone said 4 a.m. Talbot shared that she set multiple alarms, slept through a couple of them, but ultimately made it to the school before the sun began to shine.
For Principal Loren Messina, this senior sunrise was a full circle moment. Starting as an assistant principal at the school in 2023 before becoming the principal at the beginning of the previous school year, she’s known these seniors since they were freshman.
With senior year comes future planning, and that wasn’t lost on Feeley or Talbot. Feeley plans to study psychology, hopefully at Smith College, while Talbot wants to study music education at UMass Amherst. Both have plans to continue their education post-college, with Feeley hoping to pursue a doctorate and Talbot looking to obtain her master’s.
But on Thursday, it was a special last first day of school.
