Day Two Already???

For the faculty and staff in the Ralph C. Mahar Regional School District their first day of work was Tuesday and the 2010 – 2011 School Year officially began when our students filed into their classrooms yesterday. As has been my yearly tradition since the night before I entered Mrs. Volpe’s Kindergarten classroom, I spent the night before my first day tossing and turning. There is so much excitement in a new school year.

For our Students
In many cases our students spend their summers with a smaller group of peers. The first day back to school offers each of them an opportunity to reconnect with friends that they may not have seen for more than two months. They wonder how they will get along with their new teachers and whether or not the classes they are in are going to be hard. I heard one middle school student talking to her friend in the hallway yesterday, “I hope Mrs. Normandin doesn’t give a lot of homework.” “She does” I responded. She didn’t say anything, but looked very disappointed.

I watched yesterday as our new students in seventh grade peered at their schedules and then looked up taking in all of their new surroundings. Moments later I saw the juniors and seniors in the hallway hugging. In more than one instance I had to ask some of the boys not to jump on one another’s backs. I guess this is their way of saying, “Hello” to a friend who was sadly missed when school was not in session.

For Our Teachers
The first day of work for teachers was Tuesday, August 24. Yet on Friday and on Monday so many of them were in their classrooms setting up seating arrangements, bulletin boards, and reacquainting with their work. More than one expressed to me the impossibility of sleep with so much stirring in their minds about the start of the new school year. “They better be ready to work” said one seventh grade teacher. Since our students come in to seventh grade from three different school districts there is always the unknown of how they will all be when they are together.

I just walked the halls of the middle school and the high school. I stopped in the Guidance Office, the Special Education Office, and the library. It is as if today is just the 182nd day of last school year. There was action in every class. Guidance counselors had students and parents in their offices making final adjustments to schedules, and Mrs. Thorn is providing new students with their official Eileen Perkins Media Center orientation. The phones are ringing, parents are dropping off lunches, and our quiet bureaucratic summer is now a fully energized organization.

There are many positive changes happening this year. I will be blogging about them in the coming days. I am so excited for this year – for our faculty, faculty, parents, and community, but mostly for our students. Welcome back everyone, and best wishes for a successful school year!