By: Sarah Wright | Shelby-Utica News | Published August 29, 2025
SHELBY TOWNSHIP — For the first day of the 2025-26 school year, staff and parents at Morgan Elementary excitedly helped students as they returned from the summer break.
Schools in Utica and Shelby Township officially returned on Aug. 26 for a half day of school. Morgan Elementary is a part of Utica Community Schools, which is Michigan’s second-largest school district and includes four high schools, six junior high schools and 25 elementary schools, according to the UCS website.
Students arrived at Morgan Elementary before 8:30 a.m., with some being led to the door by their parents and some coming in by themselves.
Lydia Koja dropped off her son at Morgan Elementary. She has two other children who got to school in UCS, and she is also one of the lunch moms who helps out during lunch periods.
“He’s excited, he’s happy for the teacher and his friends, everything,” Koja said.
Morgan Elementary School Principal Sue Lasky was there to greet some of the students and parents and help them with any questions or concerns.
Lasky has been with the elementary school for around 14 years now, and she’s been with UCS for around 18 years.
“This is a role I had wanted to do my entire life, following in the footsteps of my parents who were educators,” Lasky said. “So, it’s very rewarding. You get a lot of time with kids, you get to experience and see growth with kids, education, all of the fun things that you could do as a teacher, but I get to do it on a broader spectrum because I get to watch over the whole school and get to know the whole school of kids. So, it’s a lot of fun that way.”
For Morgan Elementary’s first day of school, an assembly at 10 a.m. was planned for the whole school to discuss things that the children should know as they start their school year.
“So, we’re going to do a whole school assembly this morning and we’re going to talk about our eight keys of excellence, what each key is, and it’ll start our next two days going through . . . stations on bathroom, playground, and lunchroom, entrance, dismissal,” Lasky said.
Lasky said that there has been a lot of excitement from all the students, which has come from a “Meet the Teachers” night that occurred on Aug. 25, and a new playground structure.
Korey Schneider, a Morgan Elementary building substitute and parent who has been with the school for four years, enjoyed greeting the students as they arrived.
“They’ve been in such good moods,” Schneider said. “Even the kindergarteners, I haven’t seen any tears, which is shocking. You know, kindergarteners are usually kind of teary, but nope. Not this year. We got all these good faces.”
For more information, visit uticak12.org/morgan.