Amid the shiny lunchboxes and brightly colored backpacks filled
with fresh pencils, mother Alice Ahmadzadeh stood aside in the
playground of El Toro Elementary School, keeping a careful eye on
her son Nicholas, 6.
Amid the shiny lunchboxes and brightly colored backpacks filled with fresh pencils, mother Alice Ahmadzadeh stood aside in the playground of El Toro Elementary School, keeping a careful eye on her son Nicholas, 6.
“He woke up at 4 a.m. today, he was so excited,” she said. “He was like, ‘OK, I’m ready to go!”
In those wee hours of the morning, Alice and her husband Amir helped Nicholas pack his Spiderman lunchbox on his first day of kindergarten. On the menu: turkey, graham crackers, lemonade and a kindergarten-staple: Oreos.
With that lunchbox carefully tucked away in his new backpack, Nicholas stood with his best friend and fellow classmate Nihar Chabra, 5. The two boys, who have known each other since they were 3 and are ‘inseparable,’ says Alice, were wide-eyed and quietly waiting for the bell to ring as their teacher Debra Baker attached nametags to their shirts.
“The most important thing to know in kindergarten on the first day,” said Baker, “is knowing where the bathroom is.”
Baker has a class of 30 this year at El Toro, making the total of three kindergarten classes at nearly 90 children. For the first day, she said she’s just as excited as the kids to see their smiling faces.
Across the schoolyard, a little girl clutches a teacher’s hand, tears streaming down from her blue eyes, not sure of where to line up.
Fourth grade teacher Maggie Leung is new to El Toro this year, a transfer from Los Paseos Elementary. She said it’s not only the students that get nervous on the very first day.
“I’ve been teaching for 16 years, and every year I’m nervous on the first day,” she said.
Leung demonstrated a science experiment on her fourth grader’s first day, and had plenty of icebreakers to loosen up nerves.
Over by the first and second grade lines of the schoolyard, a parent warned her child “The classroom is not your friend time, the playground is.”
Nearby, the Taylor family brought their youngest Nathan, 3 months old, to his first day at school. He stayed in the stroller as his sisters Kayla, a second grader, and Coral, a first-grader showed off their fuchsia-colored sparkly shoes.
“I’m slightly sad. They’re so much fun to have around,” said their mother.
“She likes it when I snuggle with her,” piped in Coral.
Beth Newquist is sending her second child, Molly, into third grade this year at El Toro.
“It’s so exciting to see, especially for as long as we’ve been here to see these kids growing up and even after the summer to see how big they are,” said Newquist, who is also a teacher’s aide at Barrett Elementary School.
Sheryl Nelson, parent of Dylan who is starting kindergarten and was first in line, remembers her first day of school in September 1979. She was featured in the Morgan Hill Times.
“I’m just glad because Dylan knows everything, all his ABC’s, he can count to 100 and backwards,” said Nelson, who has another son in third grade. “For this one, I’m ready to go, I just made sure he had his cereal in the morning.”
Principal Patrick Buchser delivered the first day of school address and ceremoniously rang the first bell to signify the beginning of a new school year at El Toro.
“When we ring the bell, it signifies moments in our lives in which we take time to reflect on our thinking,” he said.
Buchser, who has been principal at El Toro for six years and taught for nine years, said he wants the young students to show their very best thinking and improve the quality of instruction to close the racial achievement gap.
“The only way to close the racial achievement gap is to improve the quality of instruction. Period,” he said. “That is done with the three R’s: Rigor of expectations, relevancy and relationship.”
When Buchser addressed parents later in the cafeteria, he thanked them for their patience in the parking lot. Officer Demetrick Caballero of the Morgan Hill Police Department said there were no major traffic violations on the first day, although some parking citations were issued.
Caballero had suggestions on how to avoid congestion near schools when dropping off their children throughout the city.
“One: get there early. Two: park further away and walk,” he said. “It’s quicker, and takes less time than being stuck in traffic.”
He noticed some parents near P.A. Walsh Elementary School parked in private apartment lots or the 7-Eleven parking lot. He warned against those parking choices as they could take up spots for tenants or customers.
Superintendent Wes Smith had a first day of school himself, both as a parent and administrator. He has one child at Walsh, Martin Murphy Middle School, and Ann Sobrato High School. He also tries to visit every school in the district within the first two days of the school year.
“It’s really a motivation for me to see jut how excited kids were,” he said. “I was just as energetic.”
