When the call came just after noon on May 17, Scott Woolford was told he would have to gather his things and leave by the end of the school day. He would have to pack his budget binder, medical emergency binder and the parent council binder, along with everything else: How do you pack up an office in twohours?

As principal at Island Public School, the school with the most unusual geography in the city, you sometimes have to beadaptable.

There are 246,000 kids attending Toronto District School Board schools. Only 236 of them attend school on the Toronto Islands. And while about 30 of them live there, the vast majority are from the Harbourfront community, which means they are the only students in the city who travel to school every day byboat.

When the water freezes during a harsh winter, shutting down the regular ferry for a day or two and keeping the Harbourfront kids from getting to school, the island-resident kids, supervised by two staff members who also live on the island, ride a city bus to Billy Bishop airport. The bus travels the airport runway, letting the students off at the airport ferry for a short ride to the foot of Bathurst Street, where the TDSB finds them some space forschool.

And when the island floods, as it has this spring, they are forced to find a temporaryhome.

Their school is dry, but the roadways to the ferry docks were not safe for the children and Mr. Woolford had to move his students to the mainland for the remainder of the schoolyear.

Izzy and Billie walk off the ferry as they temporarily attend Nelson Mandela Park PublicSchool.

Michelle Siu/The Globe andMai

How do you fit a whole school somewhere else? heasked.

On that phone call in May was Jason Kandankery, the tall, affable principal at Nelson Mandela Park Public School in Torontos Regent Park neighbourhood. The school accommodated the island kids before, and it had space forthem.

Mr. Kandankerys crew would get to work cleaning out 10 rooms for when the island kids arrived the next day. Yoga mats in one room were moved into storage; so were larger desks to make room for smallerones.

On the other side of the lake, Mr. Woolfords crew set aside laptop carts, students schoolwork, tables and carpets for the bigmove.

See these baby hands? We didnt have to pick up anything, Mr. Kandankery said jokingly, one afternoon thisweek.

Added Mr. Woolford, a friendly man: It was so well orchestrated. There were nohiccups.

Billie walks near large puddles of water and a shoreline lined with sand bags on WardsIsland.

Michelle Siu/The Globe andMail

The next morning, the island-students boarded the ferry at Wards Island with two teachers and met their mainland classmates and teachers, as well as Mr. Woolford, at the terminal. Three school buses followed one another to Nelson Mandelaschool.

By noon on May 18 a day after the call the children settled into their new classrooms. The principals have staggered recess time and lunch so that both schools get to use the playground and gymnasium for their meal. Sometimes, one class will invite another into its room, or kids from Nelson Mandela will read alongside island students in thehallways.

About a month in, eight-year-old Eli Prins-Carty has reluctantly settled into his new space. He cuts pictures for a collage on the floor of his large classroom, which he shares with another class. Nearby, the Grade 1s are rehearsing for theirplay.

Eli said he walks to the ferry dock to meet his island-side classmates every morning at 8:10 for their ferry-and-bus commute to school. Before the flooding, the school bus used to pick him up on the island and take him toschool.

Its way bigger, Eli said of his temporary classroom. There are so many floors, and there are so many more rooms and so many moreclassrooms.

The island school is a one-storey building, and Nelson Mandela has three floors. On the island, kids can see the forest outside their school windows, not the cranes and construction workers around the Regent Parkschool.

On the island, kids can see the forest outside their school windows, not the cranes and construction workers around the Regent Parkschool.

Michelle Siu/The Globe andMail

Billie Page, 6, wonders if the duck eggs on the playground at her island school have hatched. Her mom, Melissa Amer, said that, although spring is a magical time on the island, being in the city is anadventure.

Billie is not so sure. It has no nature, shesaid.

Yes, it does, said her twin sister, Izzy.

Billie, wearing a white summer dress with pictures of leaves, shrugs her shoulders: It has a bunch of cars, and itsbusy.

Both girls, fifth-generation islanders, were nervous when they first came to the city forschool.

Then I got used to it, Billie said, getting ready for her commutehome.

Billie dozes off as she rides the school bus to the ferry dock on her wayhome.

Michelle Siu/The Globe andMail

Izzy strapped on her backpack, the one with a bright pink unicorn on it, and formed a line in her classroom withBillie.

They followed their teacher down three flights of stairs, and burst out the school doors into the warm sunshine. They climbed onto the last of three school buses that would wind their way through the congestion of Lake ShoreBoulevard.

As they approached the ferry docks, two police officers had blocked off the bike lanes so the children could cross safely to the sidewalk. Time was running tight the ferry was scheduled to depart at 4p.m.

We got to go, one teacher said, we got togo.

Izzy and Billie ran as fast as their little legs could carry them onto the boat that would take themhome.

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The never-ending school trip to the mainland - The Globe and Mail