It's not the beginning of a new school year in the Central Valley School District.

It's the beginning of a new era.

For the first time ever, students will start classes at Central Valley High School and Central Valley Middle School instead of Center Area and Monaca high schools.

The curricula are new. Many of the teachers and children are new to each other. The building layouts are new. The mascot is new. The colors and the signs and even the songs are new.

All of it is because of the-event-which-will-no-longer-be-named.

"We're not going to use the 'M' word any more," superintendent Dan Matsook said. And what is the "M" word? " 'Merger,' " he said. "It's over. It's time to move on. And I think everyone's a little tired of hearing that word."

That's wishful thinking, of course -- there's no way to talk about the new year in Central Valley without talking about the merger that created it.

Center Area and Monaca came together in 2009 to form Central Valley, then spent a year planning the launch of the new consolidated high school and middle school. Elementary students were combined last year.

That planning included a new-from-the-ground-up middle school program, with a team approach and a high degree of flexibility. The approach goes well beyond what had been done in the district before; Center and Monaca both ran more of a junior-high concept with middle school students sharing buildings with high school students. The new school will have a home of its own in the former Monaca high school.

Dr. Matsook said middle school teachers have been preparing over the summer, meeting with their fellow team members and getting three days of training from middle school experts.

"They've probably had the busiest summer of anyone," he said. "It's a new concept, a new building and a whole new way of doing things."

The high school curriculum was also completely overhauled to take advantage of the greater options provided by a larger group of students. A number of advanced courses and electives have been added, and the block schedule includes a short, non-aligned mid-day period which can be used for a wide variety of short course and other enrichment.

But perhaps the most visible change will be the lack of Center Trojans and Monaca Indians -- the students are now together, in school and on the playing fields, as the Central Valley Warriors.

Dr. Matsook said he anticipates little trouble with kids from the two former schools mixing.

"We knew from the beginning the students would adapt better than the adults would."

He said band camp and fall sports camps have gone off seamlessly, partly because coaches and staff members from the two schools have made a point of working together. "The adults have really set the model there," he said.

It also helps that members of the football team have been lifting weights and working out together since last winter. "I've heard nothing but positives about how they're adapting," Dr. Matsook said.

But even as the start of school marks a beginning, it also marks an end, not only of the two former schools, but of the long, grinding five-year process of bringing them together.

Dr. Matsook said former Monaca Superintendent Mike Thomas -- who co-engineered the merger process before retiring earlier this year -- will be beside him again as students arrive for the first day of school.

"I'm really looking forward to starting an actual normal year of school, if there is such a thing as normal anymore," he said.

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