JAY – Spruce Mountain middle schoolers chatted it up Wednesday behind the school as they waited to compete in get-acquainted exercises.

It was the first day of school for students in Regional School Unit 73, a newly consolidated school system for Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls. Staff and students in grades six through eight in those towns are now attending middle school together in Jay.

On Wednesday, each student was paired with one from another town to get acquainted and familiarize them with the school. Physical education teacher Mike Methvin explained the rules of a relay: Speed walk but don’t run; stay to the right on the stairs, touching each one.

“Make sure one foot is on the ground at all times,” Methvin said.

Teachers and other staff members went inside to man stations where each pair of students had to complete a task from counting to 10 and saying “Go Phoenix Go” in Spanish, or “Vamonos Fenix Vamonos,” to drawing a picture of a phoenix, the school’s new mascot, and folding the paper into an airplane and having it fly 10 feet.

Eighth-grader Richard Teele of Livermore Falls said he didn’t know how the year would go but he was approaching it with an open mind.

Superintendent Bob Wall stopped to see how everything was going.

“Everything is going excellent,” he said. “We had a very smooth start.”

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