There was excitement and relief on Thursday, June 27th, 2013 as many students in our area celebrated the last day of school in a year that was anything but normal.

Final day parties and assemblies took centre stage on Thursday. Parents, students and teachers thought about and said farewell to a year that was full of uncertainty, labour disputes, and lost extra-curricular activities.

“Our son is a grade four student and this was his first opportunity to try out for basketball so he was very sad to miss out on that,” said parent Lawrene Larche.

“There was definitely a sense of sadness and a sense of loss and feeling like at times (it) wasn’t fair that maybe an older sibling had gone on that experience and they hadn’t,” added Larche.

“A lot of the students would come up and ask me when the basketball teams were going to start, when the volleyball teams were going to start. It’s a rather athletic community and kids look forward to their extra-curriculars so that was tough to give them the answer,” said Forest Hill Public School principal Deb Russell.

But when the activities came back, excitement filled the hallways.

“I was really happy that the dispute was over and I got to go to the ROM and have a great day,” said grade 5 student A.J. Kapty.

The sound of clapping and laughter in schools is something parents, students, and teachers hope will now carry through into next year. Elementary teachers have voted more than 90% in favour of the agreement reached with the province to improve on the terms imposed earlier in the year.

“I think next year we can start fresh, we can begin our teams right away. That relationship that we develop with our children can begin right in September,” said Forest Hill Public School kindergarten teacher Andrea Callan.