Back on March 4, 2020, a public hearing was held on the reconfiguration of Salisbury Township School District.

Under the proposal, Western Elementary School and Harry S Truman Elementary School would merge, eventually becoming Salisbury Elementary School.

Fifth grade students would be transferred and become part of Salisbury Middle School.

Concerns raised that night ranged from long bus routes and crowded classes, to having young children in the same building as teenagers. But within days, everything would change with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and online learning.

Caught in all of this were the township’s elementary students.

In June, those first fifth graders to walk into SMS will be moving on to Salisbury High School in September.

On March 7, The Press spent a lunch period with three of this year’s eighth graders in the cafeteria where four years earlier, parents, guardians and neighbors raised concerns about their middle school years starting at such a young age.

Back then, what were these students’ thoughts of finding out Western Elementary School was not only closing, but everyone in the township would go to the same elementary school on the east side?

“I was at HST so I don’t remember a thing,” Malakaii Askew said, who was in fourth grade when talks about merging the township’s elementary school were being discussed.

His classmate, Julianna Rach, had a different experience, having attended Western Elementary School.

“I remember it so much,” she explained.

“I was in my fourth grade classroom and my teacher was like there’s an elephant in the room. Let’s not try to ignore it. The district is thinking about closing Western.”

Being so young, Rach doesn’t feel she fully understood what was happening. She knew one thing, “I did not want to leave.”

The other issue they all faced was starting middle school right away, a grade younger than what had been the norm in the district.

“That was a big jump because knowing that if you took the bus with the older kids, and you would think they would do, like make fun of you and stuff, but it was actually pretty nice,” Logan Kao, who attended Western Salisbury Elementary School, said.

“It was shocking seeing all the new faces,” Rach said, when she first entered SMS. She admits to being overwhelmed at first, “because Western was a really small school.”

Days after the public hearing, something unexpected happened: the world shutdown for weeks as the COVID-19 pandemic hit and these students now faced the added pressures and challenges of online learning.

According to Askew, it was a totally different experience to be online and not in his classroom.

“I wouldn’t be motivated because I wouldn’t be walking or going on a bus to school. I would be in my house, which was quiet, and I didn’t hear anything else except for the teacher talking. So, I would be sleeping sometimes,” as he reflected on those days.

Askew, Kao and Rach all agree having one elementary school is a good thing for the township, bridging together students from both sides right away.

“It brought into our horizons knowing more people. Plus, they don’t have to separately fund two buildings at one time when they can just bring them together,” Askew pointed out.

They also know that being part of the first fifth grade to be integrated into the middle school makes them a special class in the district’s history.

Reflecting on this, Kao said, “It’s pretty cool to know we were in Salisbury the ones that got that.”

Rach added, “And knowing that you are a Western kid. I’m proud to be a Western kid.”

“And I’m proud to be an HST kid,” Askew added, who admits not realizing everything going on at the time.

Kao said a major benefit of joining both elementary schools is getting to know the kids on the other side of the township at a younger age.

Prior to the reconfiguration, students of both sides of the township only got to know each other as classmates in sixth grade or through Salisbury Youth Association activities. For Kao, getting this opportunity in fifth grade was something he appreciated. “Knowing that we got the extra step to know all the Truman kids was nice,” Kao said.

As the final weeks of their memorable middle school years are approaching, they are all looking forward to the challenges of high school.