First day of school is ‘back to normal’

“We’re off to a great start,” said Chris Bosse, principal of Central Ridge Elementary School. “It feels good to return to what we know is normal, a normal school year, so we’re excited about that. Parents have been all smiles, kids have been all smiles coming through. Everything’s moving very smoothly.”

Central Ridge kindergarten teacher Jennifer Vybiral was super excited for the first day with her new students.

“We’re doing things a little different this year,” said Vybiral. “We have our kindergarteners all together and we’re doing some assessments in the different classrooms throughout the day and then we’ll sort them into classrooms next week. We’re getting to know them today because, of course, they’re brand new.”

Emotions typically run high when it comes to the first day for pre-kindergarten students. A couple of the Central Ridge pre-k students shed tears and felt the initial separation anxiety from their parents, but soon they loosened up and began playing with the other students.

“We’re taking it step by step, which means that not all of the pre-k started today,” said Claudia McCoy, one of three pre-kindergarten teachers at Central Ridge. “We’re separating them into three days so we can kind of get to know them in smaller groups. We plan on just getting to know them, doing a little assessment to figure out who knows what as far as academics go and how they interact socially with each other, and then we’ll split them into our three classrooms on Tuesday.”

New this year in many of the classrooms across the district is the installation of the new BenQ board, a large interactive touchscreen monitor with wireless capabilities installed alongside the usual white board in the classroom.

Amanda Harris, kindergarten teacher at Central Ridge who had one of the BenQ’s installed in her classroom over summer, described it as “a really great tool for the classroom,” as well as easy to use for younger kids.

“It’s going to be really great for the kiddos,” said Harris. “There’s this great drawing feature that they have on it, so the kids can manipulate it since it’s touchscreen. There’s a lot of good features on it. You can copy and paste pictures and all kinds of stuff that I think will be beneficial.”

She also mentioned she can see how the BenQ will be beneficial for older grades, but that there are a lot of features that kindergartners can use, too.

“It just makes it easier. It’s wireless, so that’s nice. I hate having to hook up my computer to the screen and a lot of times I have to jiggle the cord to work and the kids get antsy, but now it just pops right up and it’s perfect. So if nothing else, it helps save time on that,” said Harris.

Overall, the 2022-23 school year is moving forward with some semblance of pre-COVID normalcy with Citrus eSchool numbers dropping by half from 2021 as more kids return to brick-and-mortar learning and every single classroom having a certified teacher despite the ongoing national teacher shortage.

“It all went really smooth,” said district spokeswoman Lindsay Blair. “We want to thank all the students and families that are patient and understanding as we navigate first week school bus delays and schedule changes.”

District officials checked in with staff at each school throughout the day and reports were all good things.

As the school year continues, school zones will continue to be active each morning and afternoon and the district wants to remind motorists to pay extra attention on the roads.

“Be aware of kids crossing the street, especially at Homosassa Elementary, Rock Crusher, Citrus Springs Elementary, you know, our more neighborhood schools where parents might be walking their kids to school,” said Blair.