Hadley School Welcomes Students Old And New Tuesday Morning

Students and parents started and sitting on the front stairs at Tuesday morning just after 7:30 a.m., even though the start of of school was over 45 minutes away.

“My little guy couldn’t wait,” Andrew Pessin said. “I think he wanted to be here at 5 a.m. to go back to school.”

Principal Sandy Rivers was front and center, greeting parents and getting back-to-school hugs from several students who were thrilled to see her. Rivers wasn’t the only one at Hadley feeling the love Tuesday morning.

Children waiting to come across Redington Street, or over from Blaney Street, all took time to hug crossing guard Patty Waters.

“Oh, it’s so nice to be back, but I can’t believe summer’s over,” Waters said.

Principal Rivers, who is entering her fifth year at Hadley, said that several things were worked on over the summer at the school.

“The major things that take place over the summer are taking care of the physical aspect of the building, so it meets the needs of the students, and the beautification projects on the building are always nice to do, but the main focus is student safety,” Rivers said.

“One of the other important things we work on over the summer is student scheduling, we want to make sure all the children are in the classes that they need to be in and they all can get any support that they need,” Rivers said.

“Coordination of time is the tricky thing, that’s one of the big things we work on over the summer, schedules and scheduling times,” Rivers said.

Hadley School PTA president Richard Jache was manning a picnic table with muffins and coffee for moms and dads, even though a few nervous parents probably could have used a cup of decaf.

“We’ve got a meeting coming up on (Wednesday) Sept. 7 at 7:30 in the school gym, it’s somewhat informal, more of a “meet and greet” than anything else, we hope many parents can attend,” Jache said.

The PTA will hold morning and evening meetings to accommodate parent’s schedules during the school year. Hadley parents can reach the PTA at www.thehadleypta@gmail.com.

Hadley picked up 13 new students since school closed last spring, bringing the number of children in K through 4^th grade up to an enrollment of 271 students for 2011-2102.

“We’ll be running drills with the police and fire department during the year to prepare for any emergency, and we’ve added literacy tutors over the last couple of years and we’ve increased their hours this year, which we’re excited about,” Rivers said.

Hadley has also added math tutors for the upcoming school year, they will be available for three hours a day.

“Were excited to be back, the kids are excited, this is a great day at Hadley,” Rivers said.