Aaron Von Tersch still recalls his first day at Brixner Junior High. “I remember showing up and realizing we didn’t have recess, and the eighth graders looked like giants,” he said.

Von Tersch, now a social studies teacher at Brixner, last week greeted the junior high’s incoming seventh-grade class to Grizzly Day, a day-long event geared to acclimatize students to their new school before the first day.