THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 6, 1995 TAG: 9509060422
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Hampton Roads Back To School
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
7:36 a.m. - Cox High School, Virginia Beach
Every seat in the senior advanced placement English class is full. The teacher begins writing on the board the moment the tardy bell rings. ``Please bring paper, pen and pencil tomorrow for your essay test on the summer assignment.''
Students sit stunned. They'd totally missed the 12-book reading list. No one can tell whether or not he's joking.
It's going to be a really long year.
- Lee Hinnant, senior
7:45 a.m. - Tallwood High School, Virginia Beach
During a lively introduction to junior English class, teacher Derek Brunkhorst offers some advice on sharing lockers with loved ones.
It's a really bad idea to share a locker with a boyfriend or girlfriend, he says. That's because if you break up, you'll have to have custody battles over books.
``Don't do it,'' he advises.
- Maria Workman, junior
7:50 a.m. - Deep Creek High School, Chesapeake
A dvanced placement biology this year has eight students enrolled - and one small mouse. Actually, the mouse is the teacher's pet and lives in her office.
One student walks around, stroking the tiny gray rodent in her palm. Another student thinks it might be fun to dissect the little mouse to ``see what's inside.'' But she figures that the cats that they will dissect later this year will prove to be more interesting.
- Stephanie Stevenson, senior
8 a.m. - Churchland High School, Portsmouth
Everyone is in homeroom listening to one of many announcements Principal Raymond A. Hale will make throughout the day. This one is a reminder for teachers to keep an accurate account of how many people are in their classes, how many males and how many females.
``Our enrollment is very important to us,'' Hale says. ``We want to count as many people absent as possible.''
Jill Bruner, senior
10:30 a.m. - Tallwood High School, Virginia Beach
The teacher, Fara Wiles, is telling students that journalism I and journalism II classes are totally separate, but that they must work together to get the ``King's Chronicles'' to press. Wise journalism II students quickly determine that they'll have ample opportunity to dog the green journalism I students.
``No, you can't pick on journalism I students,'' Wiles says. ``Only the editors can.''
- Maria Workman, junior
11:15 p.m. - Windsor High School, Windsor
It's first lunch and the place is packed. One nervous freshman, a newcomer, gets his cheeseburger and fries and starts circling the edge of the lunchroom looking for a familiar face, or at least a friendly one.
There is no room. An administrator taps him on the shoulder and points him toward the adjacent and deserted middle school lunchroom, where he eats his lunch in solitude.
- Sara Baker, sophomore
11:30 a.m. - Salem High School, Virginia Beach
It's the first meeting of anatomy class and students are being introduced to a very important member of the class - Fred, the skeleton.
Teacher Cindy Midkiff points out various bones, including the humerus, the radius. But when she touches the ulna, the large bone in the forearm, Fred's hand falls to the floor.
He's not in very good shape, Midkiff says amid students' giggles, but ``I'm working on him.''
- Abby Swanson, senior
Thursday, Aug. 24 - Gates County High School, N.C.
The day could not be worse. If it's not the buses getting to school at 7 a.m. instead of 8 a.m., then it has to be the malfunctioning intercom and bell system.
A bell sounds at 10:05 a.m., 20 minutes early, confusing teachers and students. By 10:06 a.m., the halls are filled. At 10:07 a.m., vice principal Elton Winslow announces, ``All students should report back to their first-period class.''
``We shouldn't even be here,'' one student grumbles as he turns back. ``Everyone in Virginia is still on vacation.''
- Eric Nickens Jr., freshman by CNB