Eastmont students fill classrooms as new school year begins

EAST WENATCHEE — “Our school is brighter with you here.”

The message outside Lee Elementary School offered a welcome as students across the Eastmont School District returned for the beginning of the 2026-27 school year.

By Thursday morning, the words on the marquee had become reality across the district.

At Kenroy Elementary, backpacks had made their way onto the playground, where students gathered around swings, climbing walls and play structures as the familiar rhythms of recess returned with them.

At Eastmont High School, the first full morning looked considerably busier.

Cars packed the parking areas and lined the route toward the school as students crossed between them on their way to the building. A yellow school bus moved through the traffic with the foothills rising behind it, joining a steady procession of vehicles bringing students onto campus.

Closer to the entrance, the scale of the morning became clearer. Students carrying backpacks converged on the doors in a dense crowd while cars continued arriving and finding their way through the parking lot.

For many of those students, it wasn't quite their first day.

Eastmont High School's sophomores had the building to themselves Wednesday, giving the school's newest students a day to become familiar with the campus before juniors and seniors joined them Thursday.

The arrangement reflects a somewhat different transition into high school at Eastmont. The district's freshmen attend either Sterling or Eastmont Junior High School, making 10th grade the first year at Eastmont High School and Thursday the first day all three EHS classes shared the campus this school year.

That meant Thursday brought together several versions of the same beginning.

Sophomores returned for day two with one day of experience already behind them. Juniors came back to a familiar campus one grade closer to graduation. Seniors arrived for the opening of their final year.

Across the district, younger students were beginning their own versions of the same annual cycle, returning to elementary classrooms, playgrounds and routines after summer break.

The first day looks different at each stop.

At Lee, it was a welcome spelled out one letter at a time on the school marquee. At Kenroy, it was children moving through the playground again. At Eastmont High School, it was a bus making its way through a crowded campus as hundreds of students streamed toward the doors.

By Thursday morning, summer vacation had given way to another school year.

And Eastmont's schools were brighter with students there.

Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media