Lowndes County School District”s first day back to class Friday went smoothly.
“Real smooth” and “remarkably smooth” and “eerily smooth,” respectively, for Robert Sanders, principal at West Lowndes Elementary School, Matt Smith, interim principal at New Hope High School, and Dr. Robin Ballard, assistant principal at New Hope Elementary.
Besides 12th-graders at New Hope taking a jab at underclassmen via their senior T-shirts, which declare they are “B-low us,” and some sleepy third-graders at West Lowndes Elementary, the day went off without incident.
Safety was the primary concern as teachers sought to get everyone back in the groove of the school year. All available staff members wrote bus numbers on the youngest students” hands in Sharpie as they arrived in the morning to make sure they got on the right bus in the afternoon. Administrators also kept an eye on the temperature and heat index outdoors to determine if recess should be shortened or held indoors.
Roger Hill, principal at Caledonia Elementary, said the day was full of the usual first-day bookkeeping. Trying to determine how many of his 1,038 students from last year had moved or switched schools without notifying the school and filing paperwork for the new kids.
“Enrollment is up and we”ve had very little problems,” said Hill. “It”s just a good first day.”
Likewise, it was a subdued day for the 1,200 students at New Home Elementary.
“The kids usually come back kind of quiet. Then they get in their comfort zone and we see how things will work as a class and with their teachers. It”s always fun and interesting to see,” said Ballard.
Even after 20 years of first days, West Lowndes third-grade teacher Debbie Patrick still gets nervous on first days.
“I don”t sleep well the night before, and I”m here as early as I can get here,” she said.
She wasn”t the only one who didn”t sleep well Thursday night. Due to an altered sleeping schedule during the summer and the excitement of the first day, she noticed a few yawns from her students Friday afternoon. So she gave them a little break to help keep them focused for a vocabulary refresher before dismissing them for the day.
Next week elementary students at all three district schools will take the Standardized Testing and Reporting, or STAR, test to give teachers an idea where students are at academically. Teachers will tailor differentiated instruction based on those results.
Sanders says the STAR results will be used in concert with a number of intervention strategies implemented in recent years to bring West Lowndes Elementary School”s 225 students along.
“We worked a lot of computer lab programs, small group sessions, the whole gamut. And we cleaned a lot off our plate, those things we found are not working,” he said.
The cuts included slicing 10 minutes off of specialty classes such as music and physical education for the sake of one-on-one intervention with students. Also, the first half hour of each morning at West Lowndes Elementary is “Drill That Skill” time, when students break into groups to receive special instruction in their most pressing academic subjects.
“Every teacher, every staff member, everybody in the building was assisting children to improve those areas they need to work on,” said Sanders.
But administrators don”t want to overwhelm students on the first day. That”s why Smith believes it”s a good look to schedule the first day on a Friday.
“Teachers get (students) in and tell them what they expect. Issue some books. Hand out documents for mom and dad to sign. They come back Monday and, generally speaking, are ready to get started,” he said.
New Hope Nigh has approximately 800 students.
Jason Browne was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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