As the school year comes to a close, seniors often look back on their elementary school experiences with nostalgia.

Several North area elementary schools are having reunions for their seniors to come back and see their old school, friends and teachers. Gathel Giesbrecht, who attended Bluejacket-Flint Elementary School, is going to BJF for a reunion on May 7. Giesbrecht said that he is excited to see what everyone who went to his elementary school has become.

“It’s just kind of cool to see everyone get back together after it’s been six years,” Giesbrecht said. “Some of us go to other high schools and middle schools; a lot of people went to Trailridge, a lot of people when to Northwest, some people went to Piper.”

PTA member and organizer for this year’s reunion, Kelly Ingram, said that the students will meet in the library and reconnect with the staff from their school to talk about future plans. Ingram also added that even though they did not ask for an RSVP, the school knows that a lot of students are planning to attend.

“We have invited and tried to connect with staff through social media and hope many are able to return to BJF for the afternoon,” Ingram said. “I imagine the teachers will love seeing the changes in the students and the students will love seeing the teachers and talking about their plans.”

Felicia Netolicky, who has been the principal at East Antioch for four years, said that students will walk around the building, sing a song with the music teacher and visit with each other and staff members.

“We are hoping for a lot [to attend] since the majority of them are still at North,” Netolicky said. “[I am most excited about] having students return and tell us about their future plans. [I hope my current students remember] how much their teachers and school cared about them and continue to think about them and their future.”

Senior Asher Molina plans to attend the East Antioch reunion.

“I want to see everybody all grown up,” Molina said.  “I still know like four people I went to elementary school with, but for the most part, you have those memories of them when they’re young and it’s fun to see how much they’ve matured as a person.”

For Molina, his elementary school helped shape who he is as a person.

“I would say it’s probably just having the quality of friends over quantity. In elementary school, I probably had four or five friends, which may sound sad, but those were some of the best times of my life. It really taught me that you don’t need to be super popular with everybody, you just need to have a handful of people that you really love and that’s what’ll make you happy.”