CLASS ACT

PALMER — Hope Krauser looks on the cafeteria wall to find her name on the home teacher roster.

“It’s Mrs. Smith,” she confirms to the woman next to her.

With a backpack filled with new school supplies, Krauser, 11, follows her aunt, Dowie Ferguson, to an empty seat in the cafeteria at Palmer Junior Middle School (PJMS) to wait for orientation for new sixth-graders. This is not Sherrod Elementary, and the pre-teen knows it.

“She’s a little scared,” Ferguson said. “We were up at 6 a.m. getting ready. Mom’s working, so auntie came to the first day of school with her.”

While many of the new middle school students tried to keep it together or wake up, others walked with confidence through the school halls.

Dakoda Knight, 11, said he is excited to begin the school year, but that the summer could have been longer.

“I skateboarded and played guitar all summer,” Knight said while sipping hot chocolate. “This is cool, having all new teachers and new things to do.”

Sporting new backpacks, jeans and sneakers, 210 new sixth-graders filed into their first day of class at PJMS Monday morning with many lamenting the end of summer vacation and some fearing what middle school will hold.

Principal Gene Stone said the staff at the school has been working overtime to make sure all of the kinks in the transition from elementary to middle school are smoothed out for parents and the incoming students.

“This is a brand new environment and often times a scary one,” Stone said. “They are used to a self-contained environment where everything was handed to them. Now they have a variety of choices that can start off a little overwhelming.”

In most of Palmer’s elementary schools, students are assigned to one teacher through the academic year. That’s much different than middle school, Stone said, where students move from classroom to classroom meeting separate expectations.

Then there are the lunch choices.

Students at PJMS are required to use a student identification number as they select from myriad lunch items, a far cry from the traditional elementary school cafeteria.

In addition to finding their classrooms and learning lunch line etiquette, new middle-schoolers are also assigned lockers equipped with a combination lock, Stone said.

During sixth-grade orientation Monday morning, new students gathered in the school cafeteria in search of familiar faces and to find out who their home teacher will be from the large class rosters posted on the walls. From there, they could watch as seventh- and eighth-grade students walked confidently to their classes.

For some kids, Stone said, the first day of school can be overwhelming.

“A lot of these kids are set on auto-pilot during elementary school,” he said. “Now they have to choose their electives, choose their lunch and move to the beat of a new school.”

New and returning students at PJMS aren’t the only ones getting back into the groove at PJMS. Also new to the middle school are three teachers, several staff aides and a fresh janitorial service crew. It’s the first day of school for everyone.

Geoff Penrose, PJMS’s assistant principal for the second year, said the first day back to school is full of high energy and slight confusion, but that staff help students through the transition in the best way they can.

“It’s exciting getting back to school,” Penrose said. “There are challenges, but they usually don’t last very long.”

Penrose walked the new students, as well as many eager parents, through a standard day at PJMS. Students watched as lunch staff explained the mechanics of meal pick up, teachers directed them to their classes and how to unlock their lockers before newcomers marched off to their first classes.

Kirsten Knight, Dakoda’s mother, said she came to orientation with her son to make sure the transition from elementary to middle school would be a smooth one.

“He’s pretty confident,” she said. “This school has a really good setup. I have no worries whatsoever.”

As Dakoda Knight mingles with his friends from a past school life and teachers scramble to round up their students, parents say their goodbyes and head off to start their day, confident their kids are in good hands on the road through the next level of their education.

“It’s all about the experience,” Kirsten Knight said. “That first day is always a roller coaster ride, for everybody.”