Schools

Teacher: Starting a New School Year is "Overwhelming."

The first-day-of-school experience varied from parents, administrators, teachers, staff and students at Hollywood Elementary School. This is one of those stories.

It was the first day of school, and teacher Liz Babcock had been preparing for this the minute she ended the previous year.

Starting a new year is “very overwhelming,” she said. Even so, on Monday Babcock began her fourth full year as a fourth-grade teacher at , and it seemed she has the opening act figured out as students filtered into her classroom.

“You always make sure they [have] stuff on their desk,” she said, like a bucket of supplies and instructions on the chalkboard. This gets the students preoccupied right away, she said.

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Monday, it worked.

“It was dead silent in my room, and I thought, ‘Wow, they really get it,’” Babcock said.

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Babcock will place extra emphasis in her curriculum this year on desirable personality qualities — like honesty and teamwork — part of a school-wide “Six Pillars of Character” program.

Babcock said she sees it as a way to build community within a school that is already “amazing.”

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