East Dubuque Schools Back in Session

By Tim O’Neill

School is back.Gone are the days of hanging out with friends or lying around on the couch playing video games all day. It’s time to learn. And surprisingly enough, some local students are happy about it.”It’s good to be back learning stuff and meeting friends again,” said Adam Lange, an eighth grader at St. Mary’s Grade School.”I love being able to talk to teachers and hang out with my friends. “It’s a pretty easy atmosphere here, its easy to talk and learn new stuff,” he said.Although he admitted that the homework he envisioned being assigned had him dreading the return, he didn’t mind because he “enjoys learning about his culture.”Coincidentally, the part he enjoyed most about summer vacation?”The freedom of not having to work on stuff; homework is the worst,” he responded.Lange said he couldn’t decide which he liked better, being in school or summer vacation. He described the feeling as “kind of a mixture of both.”"I like not being in school, and I still like being in school,” he said. “It’s something to do; when you are on summer vacation you really kind of sit around sometimes and not do nothing. At least I’m active now.”Surprisingly, he liked the first day of school more than the last day, although he still likes the last day quite a bit.”The first day of school you’re more excited, I would say. I feel excited when I come to school, you don’t know what’s going to happen; you don’t know if it’s going to be different.”"The last day of school is exciting because you don’t know what the summer is going to be like. The same as the beginning. You want to get out and do stuff. It’s the same when you get to school, you want to get in here and learn stuff and do new things and meet new people.”Kaitlin Spitzack, an eighth grader at East Dubuque Elementary said school was “OK” but she was still excited to start anew.”I had a lazy summer,” she said.Spitzack said she preferred the happiness of the first day of school to the sadness of the last day. She is not looking forward to saying goodbye to some of the younger students she will leave behind when she moves on to high school next year.”You have to go to the high school and you were the top dogs and now you’re like the little people,” she said. She added that she is looking forward to becoming a freshman and that anticipation could make the school year seem to go by a little quicker.”Russell Paramore, a seventh grade student at East Dubuque Elementary School was indecisive when asked which time of the year he preferred but admitted he was happy to be back in school.He says the summer seemed to drag on and he started to miss hanging out with his friends but was excited to get back to doing the geography crosswords in Mr. Weber’s social studies class.

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