It's the day of the year many parents look forward to the most and many children dread the most -- the first day of school.

Students returned to the Austin elementary and middle schools Thursday and it was an adventure for all involved.

"I think I liked kindergarten a lot more better," confessed Maty Erie, a student in MaryAnn Heimsness' first-grade class at Neveln Elementary. "You have to be here a long time. I miss my mom, my dad and my brother and my baby sister. I don't think I'm going to be able to handle this."

"It's hard to keep up with school after coming off vacation," added Michael Gaines, also a Neveln first-grader in Heimsness' class. "Until it's recess, we have a good time, but it's a good thing we have recess because the heat wears us out."

William Bjorndal, another first-grade student at Neveln, disagreed with Maty and Michael. "School's fun," he said, adding he liked being there the whole day instead of just a half-day, as he had in kindergarten.

Lana Epley, a transitional first-grade teacher at Neveln also was glad to be back at school. She was a transitional kindergarten teacher last year and said she sees many changes in her students. "They've matured a lot. They're able to sit and work longer and they're able to be more detailed in their work," she said.

However, she said it will take them a week or two to get used to being at school all day.

"They did real well this morning, but after lunch they were tired and they were hungry. They had just eaten lunch, but they still needed a snack. Some have problems knowing they can't just run into the bathroom, that they have to ask and go down the hall."

New sixth-grade students also face many adjustments – though generally of a different nature.

"It's confusing going around a bigger school," said Daniel Collier, a sixth-grader at Ellis Middle School.

"It's fun … there's more stuff to choose from, more classes, more sports, more teachers … but everyone's taller than me," Jordan Harland, also an Ellis sixth-grader, said. "You have to look up at everyone."

"Yeah, we just got done looking down to everyone else, now we have to look up at them," agreed Lauren Heiny, a classmate of Daniel and Jordan.

Daniel, Jordan and Lauren agreed there was a mix of good and bad things about their new environment. "There's more rules, and getting used to the lockers is a change. The teachers are nice, lunch was good. There's no recess. That sucks, but we'll get used to it," said Lauren. "I like having different teachers. In elementary school, you'd have different teachers for art, music, gym and maybe a different one for social studies and that's it. Here, you have six or seven different ones."

Jacob said having an ID card would be a big adjustment for him. "I'll forget mine four days of the week," he said.

Kathy Huffman, their math teacher at Ellis, is confident they'll be just fine. "The fact we have conferences before school starts helps tremendously. They've seen the building, they know how to get to their lockers … they recognize their teachers … so a lot of that anxiety has been taken out."

However, she said the students do have some adapting to do. "What's really confusing for them are the schedules. They're not used to the bells ringing. In elementary school, maybe they changed classes, but it wasn't such an exact thing with the bell rings, you gather your books and you go. So there's that and being able to find the rooms. It's much different to find your classrooms with your parents before the start of school than it is when the hallways are full of kids," she said. "They'll be fine. They seem like they're a really good group of kids."

Amanda L. Rohde can be reached at 434-2214 or by e-mail at amanda.rohde@austindailyherald.com