By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

AUBURN – The first-day rituals began at the foggy edge of the playground.

Parents snapped photos as kindergartners looped name tags around their necks. Boys slapped high-fives with classmates they hadn’t seen all summer. Teachers stood in the doorway, greeting both kids and adults with hugs.

There were goodbye kisses. Lots of smiles.

But the first-day excitement was bittersweet at Lake Street Elementary School.

With a modern school under construction on the edge of the neighborhood, Lake Street school will close at the end of the year.

Eighty school years have come and gone for the tiny brick school. No. 81 started Wednesday.

Said parent Cathy Wilson, “It’ll be a special year because it’s our last.”

Space crunch

Ethan Wilson, Cathy’s son, took less than a minute to get comfortable in his second-grade classroom.

At the small desk in the middle of the room, he grinned and greeted everyone who passed: the girl who was in his class last year, the boy he’d played with for years, the teacher he first met in kindergarten.

Like many Lake Street students, the 7-year-old already knew almost everyone. And they knew him.

“Hey, my desk is rocky!” he exclaimed, shaking it to emphasize. “Oh, great.”

A nearby classmate rolled her eyes. “Your desk is always rocky.”

Like many of the 136 students, Ethan has been in the school since kindergarten. His older brother and sister went there. His father went there.

“We even have families whose grandparents came to this school,” said consulting teacher Susan Trask.

Upstairs, many of the third-graders said they always looked forward to the first day of school. For some, Lake Street was like a second home.

Noah Fournier couldn’t wait for Wednesday. He wanted to be with his friends. He wanted to be back in Lake Street Elementary School.

“I like the playground,” he said.

Over the years, the neighborhood came to treasure its close-knit school. But the building has no gym or cafeteria, so students have to be bused somewhere else for gym and have to eat lunch in their classrooms. There’s no space for a library, so one has been set up in a portable building out back.

On Wednesday, new kindergartners gathered in the middle of the hallway because there was no place for an assembly. Ethan’s second-grade class learned that the lunch line would form just feet away from their classroom door.

The new school will have a cafeteria, gathering spots and more. Even air-conditioning.

“We’re going to feel like we’ve died and gone to heaven,” Trask said.

Makayla Norcross, a freckled 8-year-old, began third grade Wednesday. Her older sister graduated from Lake Street. Her younger sister started kindergarten there this week.

“It’s kind of sad. I’ll miss this school,” Makayla said, working on a poem during class.

But the new school offers something intriguing for her: location.

“I think it’s cool because it’s right across from my street,” she said. “I just have to walk, like, 10 steps across the street. It’s awesome.”

Bigger and better?

The new school will hold 300 pupils in kindergarten through grade six. Lake Street has 136 students and only goes up to grade three.

The smaller school allows all staff members to get to know all kids.

“To the point where if someone leaves a backpack or jacket behind, you know whose it is,” said Karla Downs, a veteran third-grade teacher.

But the larger school will allow kids to stay in one place for seven years. That’s a fair trade, teachers said.

“It’s really going to make everything run so much smoother,” Trask said.

Back in the third grade, Noah considered the new school where he’ll spend the first day of fourth grade. It’ll have an extra-large gym, a cafeteria and a music room. His friends will go there with him. His teachers will go, too.

“It will be better, so I’ll like going there,” he said after thinking about it. “But I’m going to miss Lake Street.”