OTTUMWA — Middle school teachers are used to hundreds of recent elementary students showing up on the first day of classes. On Wednesday, Evans Middle School will get twice the usual number of new students.

“It’s going to be a new experience for 750 kids,” said Davis Eidahl, Ottumwa’s associate superintendent and a former principal at Evans Middle School.

Sixth-graders already know they won’t be in elementary school this year: Evans is going from a seventh- and eighth-building to sixth, seventh and eighth. And while an effort has been made to make their transition smooth, the current principal said his staff hasn’t forgotten about the other “new” students.

“We can’t forget our seventh-graders,” said Dan Maeder, echoing, he said, the sentiments of his teachers.

Those youngsters, like the incoming sixth-graders, were also in elementary school just last year.

“The seventh-graders’ eyes are as wide coming in for registration as the sixth-graders’,” Maeder said.

But the biggest changes have been made to accommodate a whole new class, sixth grade. A $12 million building project not only gave the middle school more space, it’s giving every elementary school more space as they ship their sixth-grade class off to Evans.

“Sixth-graders will have their own entrance,” Maeder said as he walked down the separate sixth-grade wing. “The bus drivers have already been told they drop seventh and eighth at the [gym] doors and sixth at the old entrance, the auditorium doors.”

For the most part, he said, the youngest students in the building will not be interacting with the older kids.

“The counseling office and the media center (library) will be central... common areas.”

Maeder and Eidahl said school employees have worked with parents on the transition so they could react to concerns or fix problems. They also wanted families to stay informed.

A couple of moms did tell sixth-grade registration personnel their boys were a little nervous. One educator gently teased, “Are you sure it’s not Mom who’s nervous?”

Sherry Babcock said she wasn’t worried at all. She’s sent two older kids through Evans already.

On Wednesday, she was in the library filling out paperwork with her next child to attend Evans, Clorenda.

Clorenda said she thought the new building was pretty cool. And she was happy to get back to class, especially math and science. Evans is a lot bigger than an elementary school, she said.