Good Weather for Ducklings: School Starts Today

More than drizzle, less than downpour: Students and parents splashed to school this morning on the first day of school.

If only it was sunny, lamented Principal Wayne Clark.  Teachers had prepared to collect their students by holding signs with their names on them outside the school. Not today.

Instead, umbrellas and raincoats were the fashion of the day.

Incoming Shamrock kindergartener Joanna Coreas carried an umbrella that is as large in diameter as she is tall.

“She’s not a morning person,” Joanna’s mother, Nancy Romero said. “But today she is.” Joanna is excited, Nancy said, to be starting kindergarten.

School staff warned incoming students and parents to wipe their feet on a floor runner in the cafeteria or face a possible slide on the floor.

In one hallway, Samantha Lundin met with her first grade teacher, Armene Chorbajian. Samantha was excited, but a little nervous, her father, Ken, told Woburn Patch. Chorbajian taught Lundin’s son, Jake, a fourth grader, as well as Dad and Dad’s older brother, Ken said, and she looks the same now, he said, as she did then.

In the school cafeteria, Kenneth Forestal brought his breakfast over to where his mother, Michelle, was sitting.  The first day of school is “exciting for him,” Michelle said of her son, a second grader. “He wanted to come (to school) since Monday.”

Michelle wanted to buy Kenneth one special thing for school:  a Justin Bieber backpack because, she said, he’s done well in school.  Last night, they searched store after store for one, she said, with no luck. They’re going to look some more.

Around 8:20 a.m., Principal Clark offered a “Good morning” over the PA. He told parents which door their children will be dismissed from at 2:40 this afternoon.

“After you say your good-byes,” he said, “we’ll start our school day.”

By 8:25, the front lobby was almost empty. The school bell buzzed.

Standing near the front door, Judy Hogan, a special education paraprofessional at the Shamrock School, offered a piece of folklore about the weather.  If it rains on your wedding day, she said, that’s a sign of good luck. Maybe, she said, a rainy first day of school will mean a good school year.