By Day's End, Jitters Turn to Joy
As 8 School Districts Begin Classes, Students Venture Into Unfamiliar Territory -- and Succeed
By Tracey A. Reeves
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 28, 2001; Page B01
They arrived in pigtails and capri pants, backpacks and Nikes, about 300,000 students in eight area districts returning to school yesterday.
With a week left before the unofficial end of summer vacation, schools in Anne Arundel, Charles, Frederick, Howard, Prince George's and St. Mary's counties in Maryland and Loudoun and Fauquier counties in Virginia opened their doors.
And with the first day of school came the usual mix of delight and dread: kindergartners competing for computers, third-graders quietly practicing their multiplication tables, sixth-graders hoping to find -- and successfully open -- their lockers, ninth-graders hunting down their friends, and seniors counting the days until graduation.
Kindergarten
Take Hailee Rust, a 5-year-old who stunned her parents Sunday by asking if she could go to bed early so she could be "rested" for her first day of kindergarten.
But then, Hailee's father, Dean Rust, has always found his daughter a little surprising. "And she's been dying to go to school for years," he said.
Yesterday, Hailee got her wish, making her debut at Columbia's Thunder Hill Elementary School in pigtails and a purple skirt.
Her teacher, Donna Brackins, agreed with Hailee's high opinion of kindergarten.
"It's a tremendously important year," Brackins said. "A lot of kids come with rote memory skills. They've learned letters, for instance, but they don't know how to use them. This year, they'll be developing literacy and math and language skills."
But kindergarten is not about academics alone. Just as vital, noted Brackins, is the development of behavioral skills, such as learning to solve problems on one's own.
An hour into the school day, Hailee faced her first example of that.
Curious to find out why her computer wasn't working, she stood up to look at it from behind. In a flash, a boy slipped into her chair.
"Hey! I was here first!" Hailee cried.
"You move, you lose," the boy said.
She tried to sit in the chair with the boy. Some shoving and squealing ensued, and Hailee landed on the floor.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
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Molly Hemler, a third-grader at Thurmont Elementary School, peruses one of her new textbooks.
(Bill O'Leary - The Washington Post)
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_____Live Online_____
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Read the transcripts of our back-to-school discussions with Washington area superintendents, the U.S. secretary of education and others involved in educating young people.
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