First day of school

Sporting a polo shirt, denim shorts and skate shoes, 5-year-old Cesar Garcia was playing it cool on his first day of school at Jacks Valley Elementary on Wednesday morning.

The new kindergartner was hanging out on the playground with his older sister Liz Garcia, watching other students line up on the blacktop for their new classes.

"I'm excited to play," Cesar said.

If he was nervous, he didn't show it. Perhaps he had one advantage over other students. His sister, a former Jacks Valley student, had already shown him the ropes.

"He's just excited. He's met his teacher and wants to get to know her," Liz Garcia said. "Now, he just wants to play with kids and make friends."

A senior at Douglas High School, Garcia still remembers her first day of kindergarten at Jacks Valley Elementary.

"I was just scared of the people and all the little kids," she said. "But I did make friends."

Jan Matts, a reading teacher at the school, said it doesn't take long for new students to make friends.

"The hardest thing is trying to find someone at recess," she said. "But it doesn't take long. It's so friendly around here."

Matts and reading specialist Cris Jezek were cruising the hallways preparing for a pirate treasure hunt. They planned on taking kindergartens and their parents on the pirate adventure as a way to show them the school.

"I'm so excited," said Jezek.

But even with the friendliest of welcomes, some parents had trouble letting go of their children for the first time.

"It's very sad," said mother Nicole Johnston, whose daughter Kayce was starting kindergarten. "There are all kinds of new, anxious feelings."

Mother Lisa McNelly wanted to capture some of those feelings. She had her 5-year-old son Jamie stand in front of a school bus for a photo.

"He's my first, my only child," she said.

Jamie, also starting kindergarten, was a bit dazed by the whole thing.

"I'm just a little tired. I just woke up," he said.

The impulse to immortalize the first day of school was not unique to Jacks Valley. On the other side of the Valley, Janna Collins, mother of two, was taking a picture of her 4-year-old daughter Marin in front of a sign at Pinon Hills Elementary.

"I think it's harder when it's your baby," said Collins, who also has a third-grader at the school. "Today, we're not going to part ways too much, but tomorrow will be much harder."

Wearing a plaid dress, red socks and black shoes, Marin shied away from questions, but did show off her purple backpack.

"I'm feeling good," she said.

Inside the school, staff members were already busy with the first day.

"There's really good energy this year," said counselor Carly Strauss. "Everyone's positive and fresh. I think it's going to be an awesome year."

Special education teacher Amy Delaney, who works with fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders, agreed.

"I think it will be a successful year," she said. "There will be more co-teaching."

Also roaming the hallway was principal Rommy Cronin.

"Every year we try to look at our strengths, like our high level of parent involvement, and our special education program," Cronin said. "Our resources are fabulous here."

One change Pinon Hills staff made this year was departmentalizing the sixth-grade, providing students different teachers for different subjects.

"We felt like pushing them and raising the bar a little," Cronin said. "We taught seventh-grade math to 2/3 of our sixth-grade last year. Ninety-seven percent passed the CRT (Criterion-Referenced Test) in math, and 100 percent passed reading."

Cronin said a departmentalized sixth-grade will expose students to more specific content and higher levels of learning.

"We're proud of what we do out here, that we do push our kids," she said.

One of those in the new program was 11-year-old Shea Pitts, a self-professed science-lover.

"It's fun and nerve-wracking to have new teachers and see how they explain stuff," the sixth-grader said. "I haven't been to school for three months, so just seeing all my friends and new teachers is fun."

However, unlike kindergartners entering the school, Shea understood that the sixth-grade comes with a new set of responsibilities.

"I feel I have to be a lot more careful with the I things I do," she said. "We have to be role models."