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TUSCARAWAS COUNTY (WJER) - Area students are headed back to the classrooms this week. 

Newcomerstown starts back up today, and it’s also the first day for new students attending Buckeye Career Center. Buckeye Superintendent Bob Alsept says this year they hope to double membership in their Drug Free Clubs of America chapter, to 400 students. 

“Students who are a part of that group, they get an advantage… You know it’s not easy to separate from your peers and say I’m drug-free and I’m going to stay drug-free, but to employers and to the people out in the community, they value that,” he says.

Dover students go back Wednesday, and Superintendent Carla Birney says they look forward to the new configuration at the elementaries.

“We’ve made a lot of changes. We were able to physically move the classrooms and the furniture one day in June. We had 300 volunteers, 10 trucks, and we were able to move 68 classrooms,” she says.

While New Philadelphia Superintendent David Brand says they return Thursday.

“It’s traditionally something we’ve done here in New Phila, and that way we phase them in through and get a good week in and get all that back-to-school nights and everything else for the families and the kids to get back in the swing of things,” he says.

Garaway returns Wednesday. Superintendent Jim Millet says their theme of “difference-maker” focuses on maximizing potential.

“Along with that, we’re doing a book study. The book is ‘The Difference Maker’ by John Maxwell, and that book actually identifies your attitude as being the big difference maker, so that’s an additional part of our theme that we’re working on, and we think it’s going to make a big positive impact for our schools,” he says.

Tusky Valley Superintendent Mark Murphy says they’ve secured community donations to cut down on school supply costs.  

“We were pretty much asking our students and families to pay anywhere between $40 to almost $90 per student retail cost on the typical back-to-school supplies, and we thought, ‘You know what? That is ridiculous,’” he says. 

Indian Valley Superintendent Ira Wentworth says students won’t come across many changes when they come in Wednesday.  

“We’re always looking to become better and more efficient in our processes and become better at the teaching and learning process of course, but when you have some procedures that just work, you don’t touch those,” he says. 

Claymont is the only area district not starting up this week. Their school year begins next Monday. 

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