The beginning of the school year can be an exciting time for many students -- from finding out who your teacher is, to making friends and the yearly school shopping trips.

Maya Doty is starting off the school year looking forward to not only a new beginning in a new school, but also within her own life.

“He's been like my dad, but mostly my grandpa,” Maya said of her grandfather, Todd Doty. “Because he does grandpa-like things.”

Both Maya and her grandfather have overcome many challenges this past year. Battling for custody over his granddaughter for months, Todd has now been granted parental rights.

“It’s been scary,” Todd said of the process to gain custody of Maya and bring her from North Carolina to Rochester. “It’s been emotional. It’s been fun. It did mean that we could go forward as a family.”

Celebrating the transition from grandfather to “dad,” both he and Maya now embark on a new journey together.

“We definitely played with the combination,” Todd said. “Like the locks nowadays are a lot different than they were then [with] the combination locks. And then shopping for a girl was hard. We definitely had a lot of fun. We laughed [and] we giggled. She did most of the work.”

Both experienced Maya’s first day in middle school as not only an educational milestone, but an accomplishment the duo has long waited for.