First Day of School - Rocky Start for Republic, Extreme in Nixa

Wednesday was the first day of school for many districts.  But while some got off to an extreme start, others had to deal with problems before students entered the classroom.

It was a great first day for some with extreme sports, but others had to scramble to find bus service.  That's because vandalism struck the Republic School District and a majority of its buses.

Extreme sports took over Nixa's Espy Elementary School.

"We will hit the books tomorrow (Thursday) but today (Wednesday) we wanted to go with the X theme." says Lisa Price, Espy Third Grade Teacher.  “The X theme stands for xtremely bright students and xtremely dedicated teachers.  We have extremely supportive parents and we have an extremely successful school."

While the students had a lot of fun outside, there is a big message these presentations are trying to get across to the young students.

"The focus is on being drug-free to be able to do what you want to do in life and stay drug free." says Price.

Jackie Burton, a presenter at Wednesday’s event, gave this advice. "Never give up.  If you have a dream follow it and just do it don't let anyone tell you what you can't do.  Don't get into drugs, that'll totally mess you up.  Stay with the right people."

Staff at a neighboring school district though, had a rough start to their school year.

"We had about 20 buses vandalized and the tires were flat the bead had popped so they were off the rim of the tires as well.” says Carol Morgan, Republic School District Assistant Superintendent.

While this delayed the start of school for some students by about an hour, it was a scramble for staff.

"It's a challenge to say the least. We were prepared for school, ready to go, had lots of calls from parents this morning took them one at a time, let them know the situation." says Morgan.

Other school districts like Clever and Billings helped Republic by providing buses for the morning commute.  All the buses were back up and running by the time school got out for the day.

Republic police followed leads throughout Wednesday and Morgan tells KOLR/KSFX the vandals were caught.   Three Republic High School students wanted to pull a prank and have been disciplined for it.