Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 12, 1994 TAG: 9410040032
SECTION: NEWSFUN PAGE: NF-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: NANCY GLEINER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The start of the school year has lots to be excited about, lots to learn and even a few things to make you nervous, especially if your teacher is the dreaded Mrs. What's-her-name.
Throw in going to a new school, and the first day can also be confusing and even a little scary. While old friends are greeting each other after a summer apart, new pupils have no one who even knows their names.
Some new kids in school have an easier time adjusting than others. Cody Price, a new third-grader at Clearbrook Elementary School in Roanoke County, is familiar with what it's like to be starting the year as an outsider. This is the third school he's gone to.
Cody knows well how to make new friends. "I went over to kids and introduced myself," he said. "The kids were really nice and helpful."
He has some advice on how kids can help new pupils.
"Be nice, and try to make them feel comfortable," he said. "Try to be with them a lot and maybe help them with their work."
Tanner Price, a kindergartner, seems to have taken lessons from older brother Cody. He had a great first day at school, too.
``I went up to someone and told them my name and then started playing," he said. "Everything was fun."
On Jessica Brim's first day at Clearbrook, "kids came up and told me their names and showed me all around the school," she said.
"This year is one of the easier years for me to start a new school, because my next-door neighbor rides the bus with me," Adam Batchler said.
This is the fifth school Adam has gone to. A fifth-grader at Penn Forest Elementary School in Roanoke County, he moved from Cincinnati just four days before school began.
Penn Forest has open classrooms, which not many elementary schools do. Classes are held in large, open areas separated from other classrooms by bookcases or 4- or 5-foot-high walls.
This was all new to Ashley Baldwin, a fifth-grader at the school, even though she transferred from Green Valley Elementary, just a few miles away.
On the first day of school, she admitted her stomach hurt a lot from nervousness. She was too embarrassed to ask other pupils for help, so she asked her teacher, most of the time.
By the third day, Ashley had made lots of friends. And she felt better about asking other kids for help.
Ashley's teacher, Sandra Fortner, encouraged returning pupils to introduce themselves to the new ones.
"You know everybody; they don't," she said. "Don't wait for them to ask your name."
To make Jennifer Fralin's first day in fifth grade at Penn Forest easier, she was assigned two buddies. They showed her how to get around the school and answered any questions she had. "They made me feel like there were people here to help me," she said.
Her brother, Stephen, had an easy time making friends in first grade. "Some boys asked me if I wanted to be their friend, and I said, `Yes.'''
Erin Koval is one of several new pupils in Diane Powell's fourth-grade class at Penn Forest. She went to Catholic school in Rochester, N.Y., and this is the first time she has been to public school.
"It's a lot different," she said. "There are more kids, open classrooms, and the kids look different because they don't have to wear uniforms, like I did." Her assigned buddy, Meredith Ann Stafford, was showing her around the building.
By Jay Randolph's third day in Powell's class, he was a lot less nervous than he was two days before. He and his buddy, Thomas, helped each other with their schoolwork and were already getting to be pretty good friends.
Powell`s class has pupils from Lynchburg, West Virginia, New York, North and South Carolina and other Roanoke city and county schools.
Whether pupils come from across town or across the country, being new to a school is hard. Teachers can help with rules and school work and getting around, but it's the other kids who make new pupils feel as if they belong.
Friends are the key to making a new school a welcome place to a stranger. Be a friend.
by CNB