Ready or Not, School Year Gets Underway

Isaac, Maya and Jackson Barajas joined Eric Albee waiting for their bus heading to Triangle School this morning, for the first day of the new school year.

Jackson, a fourth-grader, said he wasn't too happy to end his summer vacation, but as the oldest student of the group—all of the others are first-graders—he put on a brave face and was ready to help shepherd his little brother to class.

"Maya said she can find her class herself," he said.

Eric waited anxiously, reporting hearing the bus even when it was several blocks away.

"I'm nervous," he said when asked how he felt about going to school.

This scene was almost certainly repeated on street corners across Hillsborough this morning, and as school officials responded to the inevitable confusion over bus and school schedules, students made it to their classrooms and began a new year of studies.

District spokeswoman Kia Bergman reported some buses departed schools up to 30 minutes later than scheduled, as teachers and administrators double-checked students, but said the day was otherwise not unusual for the first day of a new school year.

The school year begins with a total of 104 new teachers in classrooms, along with completion of a list of summer projects at the schools including:

• Paving projects at Triangle and Woodfern schools;
• Drainage work at Amsterdam School;
• Roof work repairing flashing at Woods Road school;
• Roof work adding insulation and a suspended ceiling below skylight at ARIS; 
• And the renovation of two wood shops into STEM labs.