Backpacks and big plans: Cashmere’s new school year begins

CASHMERE — At the beginning of any school year, kids are nervous and excited and a jumble of emotions all at once. Teachers feel much the same, though they’ve been preparing for this more than the kids have.

The parents, the staff, the coaches, the crossing guards and even the custodians feel autumn approaching with the start of the new academic year, even if it is still 75 degrees in the morning in late August when the kids file back through the heavy double doors of the schools.

At Vale Elementary, it’s quiet right up until just before 8 a.m., when the cars and buses start piling in, bringing the students in grades two and up — the younger kids started one day before, to get them acclimated to their new digs. It promises to be a year of wonder for young minds, and in Cashmere, the celebrated cast of teachers fosters just that kind of environment.

The Middle School is a bustle of tweens, well used to the rigors of getting up early, loading their backpacks, and heading off to the bus or even walking to school if they live nearby. Crossing guards along Pioneer Avenue, with their bright vests and lighted stop signs, guide them across the busy street to their destination.

The High School is a mixture of traffic that’s heavier on students’ own vehicles than buses, but as they park, there’s a spring in their step as well. They made the most of their summer and they’re ready to get back to their friends, their clubs, their projects and what feels like the beginning of the rest of their lives.

It seems orderly, almost too much so for such a big day. The drivers are patient and let people in and out of side streets, knowing the frustration of living in a school zone and just trying to get to work as parents ferry their kids to the closely-bunched schools.

But underlying it all on the first day is a humming sense of purpose. Parents are ushering their kids on to another year, already thinking about what portrait package they’ll get for this year’s school pictures, watching their babies grow up too fast. Teachers are getting ready to face a new crop of kids that they’ll get to know and understand only after a little time together in the classroom, but who they already love in advance.

And the kids: Ready to learn, ready to play, ready to socialize and organize and do all sorts of things they don’t even know they’ll be doing yet. One day they’ll be holding the stop sign in the crosswalk or driving the bus or teaching the class or building the new school or even running the town they grew up in.

The road that leads these kids into the future is called Pioneer for any number of reasons, but it’s especially appropriate for the youngsters who travel it to get to school: They are pioneers, forging ahead into the unknown, with the spirit of Cashmere behind them.

Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media