Steve Green’s first day of school didn’t start off the way he had hoped, but he took it in stride.
Green arrived at the corner of Great Meadows Road and Portsmouth Circle in a Lithonia neighborhood to take the bus with students to Bouie Elementary School. He finally boarded a bus with incoming fourth-grader Terrence Roseberry 18 minutes past his scheduled 6:30 a.m. pick-up. That bus, though, was headed to Browns Mill Elementary School, also in Lithonia.
“I just wound up adding another school” to the list of those he’d visit, Green said. “I got to meet Terrence, we rode together and had a good time.”
The start of the day went more smoothly for the district’s 102,000 students, most returning to class for the first time since May.
There were also no major tech glitches or classroom challenges were reported Monday in Gwinnett County, where it was the first day back to class, too. There were the traditional issues, such as last-minute enrollments, some school bus delays and teachers helping lost students to their classrooms.
“You know where you’re going?,” Coleman Middle School principal J.W. Mozley asked one student in a hallway Monday.
In DeKalb, Green wanted to take the bus to embed himself with the students, get a feel for their experience as they returned to class for the first day of school.
“I draw my energy from parents and children,” Green said Monday morning. “As much as I hope they get inspiration from me, I get a lot of inspiration from them.”
Green said he could still feel the energy from Friday’s staff convocation as he visited schools for his annual first-day drop-ins.
“They’re still riding high and buzzing from the convocation,” he said. “I can feel the enthusiasm in the building from Friday. And I think it was carrying over to the parents. Now, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and keep the (momentum). We’ve got work ahead of us. We know that we’re in a climb to continue to improve at a rapid rate and pace. And the higher you climb, the more resistance you get.”
In another corner of the district, Markevius Kemp walked his first- and third-grader to class at Flat Shoals Elementary School in Decatur before heading to the first of his two jobs for the day. Kemp made waves last year when a district staffer snapped a shot of him with his boys — now 8-year-old third-grader Marquez and 6-year-old first-grader Micah — in a hallway before he dropped them off. Flat Shoals participates in the Million Father March, a national effort started by the Chicago nonprofit The Black Star Project, where men are encouraged to support children on the first day of school as they begin a new year. Laconduas Freeman, Flat Shoals’ principal, is a local organizer for the march.
“They’re growing up,” Kemp said Monday after dropping his kids off. “Their new teachers seem really good. The boys were excited to get to school.”
Credit: Curtis Compton
Credit: Curtis Compton
His mom will greet the boys as they get off the bus from school in the afternoon, and help them with any homework before he gets home late in the evening.
“I do anything I’ve got to do,” he said of the grueling schedule.
Parents online pointed to bus delays as the one problem they endured on a cold and rainy morning. The bus taking Green to school was nearly 20 minutes late.
“It was supposed to be here at 6:30,” he told parent Sabrina Roseberry, at the bus stop.
“Well, it’s the first day of school,” Roseberry said back.
“I know they were out there this weekend doing their runs,” he replied.
Before he got on the bus, Roseberry high-fived son Terrence, reminding him to listen well and keep good notes.
As it pulled away, she waved off the bus, and any worries about its tardiness.
“You’ve gotta to give ‘em a little time to adjust,” she said.
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