First day jitters

Students and staff deal with back-to-school anxiety
Last Wednesday, Elizabeth Schwartz’s kindergarten class of 18 studious children worked quietly at their desks.

“I cried earlier, but I’m much better now,” said Christian Ramos, of the Wallace Primary School on Clinton Street. “At first it was hard, but now I’m much better and I’m having fun.”

Schwartz said her class is the first to come up through the 3- and 4-year-old program at the school and that the benefits of those programs are obvious even on the first day. “The children have the advantage of already knowing the day-to-day routine because they have already gone through it for two years,” said Schwartz. “This isn’t their first time in school, and many of them are already friends from last year and the year before.”

But Schwartz added that although they might be comfortable with their surroundings and classmates, a new grade comes with unknowns and pressures.

“This first day is still tough,” she said. “For the first time ever, they get to go to the cafeteria to eat and they don’t have nap time this year either. There’s a lot of new things to be learned, but we take many different steps to insure that the transition is as smooth as possible.”

“I’m a little bit scared, but my teacher is nice and we get to play games,” said Angela Spaccavento about her first day in kindergarten.

Just upstairs from Schwartz’s class was the well-mannered first grade class of Barbara Mongiello.

“Yeah, I’m nervous,” said one of her students, “but the first thing we learned is that everyone here is just as nervous as I am, so I guess I’ll be OK.”

Mongiello’s class of 15 boys and 6 girls were engaged in learning rules such as raising your hand to talk and respecting the teachers and fellow classmates. The students were putting the knowledge into practice as their small hands reached to the sky.

“These rules are important,” said one student. “If you’re not polite, it’s not good for anyone.”

Back to school for retired cops

This week wasn’t only the first day of school for students, it was also the first day of work for two new security officers at Hoboken High School. In an unprecedented move for the city, the new guards are retired police officers.

“This is an excellent new program,” said David Costello, a retired officer with over 26 years of experience on the force. “The benefit of hiring a retired officer is experience. We’ve have seen it all and will know how to act quickly and efficiently. We have gone through the [police] academy and will be able to detect a problem much more quickly than a security guard with much less experience.”

The new security guards are paid by the hour and don’t come with the high price of employing an active member of the force.

“This is an experiment that is going to work and is going to be a positive thing,” said retired officer Edward M. LePre. “The students are much safer having us around to protect them.”