Shaler Area High School seniors and teachers ready for the school year

By the time one gets to be a senior in high school, getting through the day is old hat. At least that’s what Isabella Keller would have you believe.

“It feels like every other day,” she said on Shaler Area High School’s first day of the 2023-24 school year. “I had trouble sleeping yesterday but other than that it feels like totally normal. I kind of missed it honestly. It keeps me structured and scheduled and gets me to interact with people I normally wouldn’t.”

A 17-year-old senior from Etna, Keller, like her classmates, understands that this year signifies the end of something.

“I know this is going to be my last year where school isn’t paid for and it’s not taken as seriously by a lot of people because there are some things you can get away with in high school that you can’t get away with in college.”

Senior May Engel, 17, of Allison Park, characterized it as more of a syllabi kind of day.

“It’s been a pretty laid-back kind of day,” Engel said. “See the people in your class, get to know the people in your class. Just get your syllabus, understand the rules of the class and then all of my teachers have said tomorrow is day one, we’re starting everything, be prepared, get all your stuff together.”

Engel said she’s putting pressure on herself to perform.

“I think there’s a pressure I put on myself to still take hard classes and still do well my senior year,” she said. “It hasn’t mentally settled in that this is my last year of high school and this is my last first day of school. It hasn’t settled in quite yet but tomorrow after homeroom it’ll definitely settle in that this is my life for the next 180 days.”

Engel said it was a bittersweet moment.

“When you step back and look at it, my mom this morning was like (I want to) re-create your first day of kindergarten picture, I want to take a picture of you now. I looked at it and it made me sad because I was like ‘I’m old now.’”

Shaler math teacher Holly Siedlecki seemed happy to be back in the routine of the school year.

“Summer is very nice but I like being back with the kids,” Siedlecki said. “You get used to two-and-a-half months of doing what you want when you want but it’s also nice to be back in the routine of what’s going on here. It takes about a week to get used to being back but then you’re in a groove,” she said.