NS has a lot of new students moving in as of this year, including many from northern Utah. As of this point in the school year there are 68 new students with two pending. Registrar Becky Rees expects that number to go up by the end of the year.
For a few, although they moved from a larger area, they went to a smaller school. So NS is a larger school than what they are used to. Junior Joseph Thorep from Salt Lake City is one of those students.
“It’s really nice to have things for extra curricular activities,” Thorep said.
Even though some students moved from smaller schools others moved from schools that had several thousand students. Moving to a smaller school has brought a big change for them.
“My school up [in Kearns] had probably a good nine thousand students,” Tilyr Szymansky said. “ It was a big change moving from something so big and busy to something so small.”
Many students have come to like the change. Even if it wasn’t their favorite at the beginning.
“When I heard it was official, I was pretty excited, and pretty worried, … anxious to get moved,” Thorep said.
Others felt the exact opposite when they first heard they were moving. And for some they still feel that way.
“I just didn’t really want to be there. It was different, I had a lot of friends back in Payson,” Braddock Epps said.
Many of the students moved to NS to be closer to family. So they already had an idea of what to expect before moving. Not a lot of NS was a surprise when they arrived.
My whole family’s down here so we always knew we were going to move closer to them,” Preston Stansfield said.
While some had an idea that they were going to move, for some new kids it came as an emotional shock to them.
“It was another broken promise for me because my dad had promised that he wouldn’t be moving me around and that we would have our forever home there,” Szymansky said.
Despite this, many new students are enjoying life in NS. For many they can have a lot of fun here.
“I’ve got to ask someone out to homecoming which I’m very excited about. And I’ve been able to make a lot of new friends and participate in some activities after school,” Thorep said, “I’ve really enjoyed the assemblies which are good.”