'Everything is going to be OK': First day of classes signals return to normal for young Jasperites

It was mostly with excitement that students and their families arrived on Tuesday for the first day of school in Jasper since their classrooms had been deep cleaned of wildfire ash and smoke.

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On the sidewalk outside Jasper's elementary, junior/high, and French schools in the middle of Jasper, friend groups reunited and families hugged as they waited for the school doors to open.

"I'm excited to see all of my friends and my teachers," Grade 6 student Madison Misskey said.

Excitement – and perhaps a little resentment of the return to an early routine.

"I'm tired," another Grade 6 student Khian Buanjug told CTV News Edmonton. "But at the same time, excited to meet familiar faces in the school."

There was also a hint of relief to come back to something familiar.

As Misskey and Buanjug's classmate Evelyn Derksen put it, she felt good "because stuff is going to be normal again."

She told CTV News Edmonton, "I'm going to get back to school. And I'm going to make new friends because there's going to be new kids in my class and everything is going to be OK."

'We're all getting used to it'

For many weeks, everything has not been OK for residents of Jasper. The entire town was evacuated at the end of July before a wildfire burned down roughly one third of its buildings.

Residents whose homes were still standing began to return in mid-August and have since been busy with cleanup, but the municipality estimates 2,000 of Jasper's 5,000 residents have nowhere to live.

"The (bicycle) ride to school was a little different," Jason Stockfish said of the Tuesday morning commute with his Grade 5 son.

The family lost their home in the fire and is now staying in a neighbourhood that was partially burned.

"He hasn't been super excited about having to ride past all the destruction but he's getting used to it. We're all getting used to it," Stockfish said.

Chantal Poscente, a mom to three elementary children whose family lives across the street from a destroyed neighbourhood, added, "We're used to hordes of children riding to school on their bikes in the morning all together and that's definitely lessened as of today.

"We're looking forward to when that happens again."

15 per cent of student body attending class elsewhere

According to officials, about 40 per cent of school staff lost their homes. Grande Yellowhead Public School Division's chief executive officer and superintendent, Carolyn Lewis, said they were all provided housing for the start of school.

"It might be in a hotel, but they are somewhere that allows them to come back."

"They've really had to work hard this weekend to get ready for these kids so we're just really grateful for the teachers," Anna Misskey, Madison's mom, said.

"And also just thinking of the friends that can't be here today because they haven't been able to come back to the community. So (there's) some mixed things going on."

Only 85 per cent of the students across all three school levels were expected to return on Tuesday, or about 350 students.

Some of the other 15 per cent are attending school in Hinton, a community about 70 kilometres away, while some of the returning 85 per cent are busing from Hinton – in either case, because they don't have housing in Jasper. The school division has said it will welcome students back at any time.

"It's kind of sad," Grade 3 student Lily L'Hirondelle said, "but I'm excited to see new people and go see some of my friends that are still here."

She is the fourth generation in her family to attend the school.

"Some of the videos it looked like everything was gone. And then we saw the school was standing, so we were so happy," Lily's grandmother Sharon L'Hirondelle said.

She expressed the same gratitude about more normalcy as every other parent did: "I'm just really happy that she's going to get regulated again because it's been a really very unsettling, lonely summer."

Lewis said mental health workers, including trauma counsellors, would be available in school to support the students. The professionals previously met with staff and parents.

"I'm so excited and overwrought (sic) with emotion," she told CTV News Edmonton.

"It's a healing moment."

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Nicole Lampa and Evan Klippenstein