DATE: Friday, September 5, 1997             TAG: 9709040619

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Education 

                                            LENGTH:   48 lines

EYES AND EARS

CHESAPEAKE

There's no time like later . . . It happens every year: the rush of parents registering their children for school at the last minute.

Actually, past the last minute. The school year already was hours old Tuesday as parents and guardians filed into the School Administration Building.

It didn't surprise Leta Ryder. She's witnessed 17 opening days for the school district from her perch at the front receptionist's desk. She knows the school year is nigh when the number of calls she fields averages 1,500 a day, rather than the usual 1,000.

At the beginning of school, there are tons of questions on everything from bus schedules to the paperwork needed to register students. Ryder's job is to switch the questioners - quickly - to the people with the answers.

``You almost have to be psychic,'' Ryder said. ``By the third word they say, you're going to know what they need.''

She estimated that by the end of Tuesday, the central office would process 100 families' school registrations for their children. That's on top of another 100 the Friday before, and 80 or so the day before that. And those numbers don't include parents who register directly at the schools.

Nancy Young

SUFFOLK

A most-special occasion . . . Ken Buns aimed his video camera as each bus emerged from the morning fog to deliver kindergartners to Florence Bowser Elementary School.

``I wish we had noticed the bus number,'' he lamented as he waited for his friends' daughter, Kyla, to reach the school.

The Bunses, longtime friends of the new student and her family, had flown in from Cincinnati to be on hand for Kyla's first day of school. Kyla's dad, a Navy SEAL stationed in San Diego, couldn't make the big day, so Buns stepped in as substitute.

Finally, Bus 81 rolled up, and Kyla stepped down, wearing Minnie Mouse shoes and a pink backpack almost as big as she was. She waved shyly.

Through the hallways, to Ms. Outland's Room No. 4, and to the cafeteria for a breakfast of milk and Frosted Flakes, Kyla was trailed by her entourage: her mom and Buns and his wife, Marty.

Buns already had taped her getting ready at home and climbing onto the bus. Now he had her grand entrance at school.

- Phyllis Speidell

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