New Changes, Familiar Faces Greet Middletown Students for New School Year

The annual return of the school year is often heralded by new clothes, new books, new teachers, new friends, but this year Middletown students and teachers have been welcomed back to their lives of academia with more new things than usual.

A full year after the controversial move of the Grade 4 and 5 Learning Academy to the Gaudet Middle School facility, this year's most visible change is seen across town on every street and in every neighborhood beginning at 7:43 am every day, as 14 brand new shiny yellow buses from Ocean State Transit equipped with GPS tracking systems make their rounds picking up and dropping off 1,500 students from the district's five schools serving Grades K through 12.

The other most visible change is seen at the Aquidneck Elementary School, where a newly expanded parking lot appears to be about 75-percent completed. Besides providing additional faculty parking, the new lower lot creates a safer access point for buses to pick up and drop off the school's Grade K-3 students—far removed from the upper lot where parents drop off and pick up their children by car, or walk them in from the adjacent neighborhood street.

At the high school, a new door just inside the main entrance diverts visitors directly into the administrator's office to the right, a new safety measure that prevents visitors from entering the school without checking in first.

And at the F talk of a new mascot has everyone buzzing, especially Principal Steve Pontes.

"We're on Forest Avenue, so of course a bear would make sense," said Pontes, also noting the practicality of it, as he already has a bear costume for a Grade 3 mascot to wear.

"We're giving the kids the choice between the bear, the eagle and the shark," said Pontes. "Whatever they pick, we'll honor that, but yes, I'm secretly hoping they pick the bear."

New teachers like Grade 1 & 2 teacher Tara Sweeney at Forest Avenue Elementary were also settling in nicely. "We're having a good start today. Everyone is here. So far everyone was very hungry and we had lots of good snacks. Next we're all going to move to the rug and we have a nice new book to read, the first book of the year."

"This School Year Will Be the Best," Sweeney was soon enunciating, as she read the title aloud to a captive audience gathered round.

Of course, some back-to-school traditions didn't change much this year.

School principals triple checked the students' arrivals and departures plans, carefully tracked attendance and enrollment for a clearer picture on actual student population numbers and teachers were reinforcing positive behaviors and establishing the rules of the classrooms and of the school.

Parents were also fairly predictable, causing minor traffic jams in the parking lots and adjacent streets to hand-deliver their children on the first day of school instead of sending them off by bus on the first day.

Others got teary-eyed at the thought of a kindergartener's first day of school for the rest of his or her life, while others lingered until the very last minute when teachers ushered the children inside.

Both elementary schools braced for the parents' arrivals with "social hours" for parents to come inside, enjoy coffee and donuts, and meet the administrators and other parents before heading home.

"I cried when I got home," fessed up mom Heidi Christy, who was smiling ear-to-ear as she picked up daughter Chloe after her first day in kindergarten at Aquidneck Elementary. "Her little sister kept asking all day 'When are we going to pick up Chloe?' and I made her favorite dinner for when she comes home tonight—eggplant parmesan."

"I was a little worried," said mom Kristen Stratford, as she picked up her daughter Kaylee from Aquidneck Elementary. "She's been to pre-K and nursery school, but this was different. It was her first day of going every day now."

Kaylee seemed to take the newness in stride. "It was nice. It was cool," she said, before rattling off the names of new friends she made such as Maya, Jordan and Lena.  She added, "We did a circle where you sat on a big carpet and we went outside two times."

"I had the best day ever!" exclaimed Chloe.