First Day for More Than Just the Students

Lorraine Storck and Shelly Jackson worked as a well-oiled machine. The secretaries answered phone calls and catered to a handful of parents and students filtering in and out of the office.

It was about 7:25 a.m. Monday, 10 minutes before first bell, and so far the first day of school was calm.

“It’s nice and quiet until that bell rings, and then watch out,” Storck said.

Sure enough at 7:35, roughly 450 students and some of their parents gushed into the school, some of them stopping to greet Principal who maneuvered her way through the mass.

A frenzy of action ensued over the next half hour. The secretaries conducted last-minute student registrations and parents added money to their children’s lunch accounts. Students funneled into their new classrooms, and started activities immediately – Play Doh in Ms. Galarza’s classroom, drawing ducks in Mrs. Snyder’s classroom, and so on.

By 8:09 a.m., parents were mostly gone, and students were tucked quietly away into their classrooms. The sound of a cricket chirping somewhere near a rear exit doorway echoed in the halls – seriously.

Depending on whether it was a student, teacher, school administrator, staff member or parent, the first-day-frenzy experience was very different.

Visit Patch throughout the day for mini-stories from various first-day-of-school perspectives at Hollywood Elementary School.