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NILES — The parents, teachers and staff at Howard-Ellis Elementary School did not let Mother Nature get in the way of students having a proper send-off to the school year Tuesday morning.

After Monday night storms caused a power outage that canceled school at Howard-Ellis, teachers and the school’s Parent Teacher Organization worked to host a fifth grade celebration Tuesday morning in the school bus lot. There, fifth graders in attendance were given bags, presented with their class rewards and treated to cake. Students were also allowed to go inside to clean out their desks. Water was available to parents and students to stay hydrated.

“We were going to do a kind of an assembly in school with fifth graders walking the halls,” said Howard Township Parent Teacher Organization President Cheri Lintz. “Teachers were going to make announcements and the principal was going to talk to all the students. But with no electricity, we couldn’t do that, so we just put out an email to all the parents and said we’ll still be here.”

According to Lintz, fifth graders and their families braved the hot conditions to see their teachers and school one last time.

“It was a great turn out,” Lintz said. “We went through almost all of the cake. I think that each of the classes only had like four or five kids that couldn’t come okay. The teachers were very excite

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