Starting school with a smile
New superintendent visits five schools on first day
New Tucson Unified School District Superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen went to school the first day right along with the children. At Banks Elementary School, 3200 S. Lead Flower, she found a bittersweet situation—staff and children excited about starting the new school year, but sad that last year's principal, Victoire VickRoy, was no longer at the school.
VickRoy died July 26, about two weeks before the doors opened. Though she had been ill for some weeks before her death, Banks still faced an adjustment period that first day.
New Principal Joe Herrmann stepped in to fill the gap, visiting every class with a matter-of-fact message: Yes, Mrs. VickRoy was gone, and yes, everyone was sad, but school counselor Veronica Vironet was on hand to talk to them. And the rest of the adults were there, too, to listen to children who wanted to talk about the loss. "Everyone here is a family," Herrmann said. "And families take care of each other. That's what families do."
Dr. Fagen visits with students during lunch.
After that, he was upbeat. "You should feel excited and happy on the first day of school," he told the classes. "You have new shoes and new pencils and a new teacher." He told them that VickRoy would want them to work hard, learn, be successful, and most of all, to have fun, because she liked having fun, too.
He taught them his name, asking them to greet him on the playground, because it was his first day, too, and he was nervous, just like them.
A chorus of good-byes followed him as he left each room. "He's cool," one fourth-grade boy told his classmate.
It was that atmosphere that Willie and Alice Orona found at the school, where they had brought their granddaughter, Brittny, for her first day of kindergarten. They shook hands with Fagen in the hall and said they had already joined the school's PTA. Willie recalled having the school's namesake, Mrs. Banks, teach him in third grade at Mission View Elementary School, 2600 S. Eighth Ave., years ago.
Marco Duran, left, and Matthew Alvarez Salvador read with Chief Academic Officer Albert Siquieros at Johnson.
Herrmann said it was really great to have Fagen come on the first day "because sometimes we feel isolated clear out here. It was a special visit. She knows we have some special things going on here."
At the next school, Johnson Primary, 6060 S. Joseph Ave., Erica Robles walked down the hall with her 4-month-old daughter, Maribel, in her arms after leaving her older daughter, Briana, in kindergarten. Briana had slept fine the night before, Robles said, but, "I was the one who didn't get any sleep." Her daughter had been counting down the days until school started for the last two weeks, she said.
It had been a good morning at Johnson, Principal Dan Weisz said, with only one kindergartner crying out of more than 100 enrolled. Jennifer Clemens, a kindergarten teacher, said, "You can teach all different ways, but if you have a good heart, you have a good school."
In the cafeteria, Jordyn Olivas in Erin Schodroski's class, settled down to eat the lunch her mother had prepared. She was ready to start her year at Johnson, saying, "I want to learn my ABC's and my 1, 2, 3's and practice coloring pictures." Her teacher, Schodroski, said the first day had been going really well and that, "My kids are awesome."
Weisz was happy with the first day enrollment, attributing at least part of that success to the public service announcements Johnson had run on KPYT, the Pascua Yaqui station with a three-mile radius. "We decided to partner differently this year and get the word out about school starting," he said. "We've been flooding the station with PSA's."
Students and their teacher enjoy lunch at Lawrence
At the next school on the tour, Lawrence Intermediate School, 4850 W. Jeffrey Road, Principal Ana Gallegos said, "It was awesome having the superintendent here on the first day. I'm excited and I'm thrilled to have her see what we're doing. The teachers work so hard, so it's good for others to see that."
At the final stop of the day, Hohokam Middle School, 7400 S. Settler Road, Principal John Michel agreed that it was wonderful having the superintendent stop in. "I just wish we didn't have all this construction going on," he said, pointing to the yellow caution tape and other signs of building.
Michel took Fagen to a class where sixth-grade reading teacher Rod Davis showed students a May 1999 Arizona Daily Star front-page story about him with a headline reading, "Kid who hated school leaves UA a teacher."
Davis had grown up in the Hohokam area when the school site was still desert. He had sat in the back of his classrooms every year, considering himself the dumbest kid in the school. "The teachers let me do that," he said. "I promise you that won't happen to you here. We're here to help you learn."
When you
Enter this
Little room
Consider yourself
One of the special
Members of a group who
Enjoys working and learning
Sign in Marcia Rosenbaum’s class Banks Elementary School
Davis, a former ironworker, had taken basic reading and math skills classes to raise his seventh-grade proficiencies when he started college. He graduated with his daughter from college.
In another classroom, Hohokam students looked forward to solving the crime scene drama that eighth-grade science teacher Heather McDonald had written for her Crime Scene Investigations class. Students would help solve a kidnapping case by analyzing evidence, fingerprints, handwriting, fabric, powder and blood in a simulation kit McDonald ordered.
In a third class, Irma Guerrero told her students they would learn to use a TV studio and write and produce their programs in a video production class.
Fagen and Chief Academic Officer Albert Siqueiros started the day at Cholla High Magnet School, 2001 W. Starr Pass Blvd., before the Communications Department team joined the tour.