As the sun rose on Sept. 2, it signified the beginning of a new year in the Wantagh School District and within an hour, the first students were making their way to school. In the high school parking lot, the eldest students gathered for their final first day adjacent to cars with “Seniors” and “Class of 2026” scrawled across the windows. 

Before long, they were headed inside the school, along with freshmen, sophomores and juniors. They walked across uplifting messages chalked along the front sidewalk by members of the Morgan’s Message Club and greeted by administrators and board of education trustees.

A short time later, the district’s sixth, seventh and eighth graders arrived at the middle school. Shortly after 9 a.m., the opening was complete when the doors opened at Forest Lake, Mandalay and Wantagh elementary schools. The biggest milestone at the trio of elementary buildings was the arrival of kindergartners, who took their first steps toward becoming the Wantagh High School Class of 2038.