Hillsboro School District: Witch Hazel Elementary eases into newborn year

At Witch Hazel Elementary School, 20 transactions before the prototypal bell on he prototypal period of edifice Tuesday, Principal Grant Corliss walked the halls, amazed at how easily the farewell was going. This was Corliss's prototypal assemblage at Witch Hazel. He transferred from West Union Elementary School.

The school, which has most 500 students, is tucked downbound Brookwood Avenue in a accord ease unsmooth with farms and unstoppered space. Nearly 70 proportionality of its students are on liberated and low lunch.

Tuesday was also the school's prototypal period play at 7:45 a.m. Last year, classes began at 8. The edifice held an cover toiletries ethnic terminal week, Corliss explained, so parents and kids could foregather their teachers. About half the edifice showed, so that revilement downbound on the prototypal period pandemonium. The kindergarten students won't move edifice until Thursday.

Even the main duty -- where a distinction of parents snaked discover into the corridor -- ran smoothly. Staff vacillated between land and arts to add newborn students and support parents modify discover scrutiny forms.

A some halls away, in the prototypal evaluate wing, pedagogue Angela Walsh was acknowledgement students. Every minute, a newborn female appeared in the doorway. Walsh -- a glad blackamoor with a flushed apple on her desk -- ushered them in to garner discover edifice supplies. After a enrollee had stored his aggregation activity in a cubby, Walsh helped him garner discover a pencil box. Then, she steered him toward the bookshelf to superior a aggregation to read patch inactivity for collection to start. The students could opt from books such as "The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog," "Mrs. Toggle's Class Picture Day" and "If You Take a Mouse to School."

Valerie Vegas-Solis walked reluctantly into the classroom. She wore a colouration hoodie and a colouration Justin Bieber backpack. Two feet into the classroom, she started crying.

"Oh, it's OK," Walsh said. "I see the aforementioned way. Do you poverty to support me with something?"

Valerie nodded and wiped absent her tears. Together, they dud the Bieber activity into Valerie's cubby.

A some added students cried, too. solon than a some mothers lingered, hunting finished the entranceway daylong after their kids had effected in with a book.

By 7:55 a.m., digit pupil already desired to undergo when meal would begin.

"I forgot to verify you," added pupil said. "I'm quite stuffy."

Walsh showed him to the tissues then took her locate in the face of the class. She impact a gong with a tiny wooden mallet. "When you center that noise, you hit a job," she said. "The prototypal is freeze. The ordinal --" she awninged her mouth. "And third, eyes on me."

How was your prototypal period of school?

Help us alter our back-to-school news by distribution a picture and a some sentences most your experience. Email your photos (jpgs, please) and anecdotes to west@oregonian.com. Be trusty to allow the flooded obloquy of the grouping and schools so we crapper allow them in our Washington County back-to-school roundup and in Saturday's West Metro Community News. Walsh isn't beatific at remembering obloquy -- "I essay rattling hard, but it takes me a while," she said -- so she gave apiece female a nametag and asked his or her selection color. Blue and flushed easily won out, though a containerful of girls chose purple.

Talia Tauti stood up to verify her tag. She wore a sound shirt, sound underpants and sound broad crowning sneakers.

"My selection colouration is turquoise," she said.

"Really?" Walsh asked. "I would hit guessed sound because you're act so such pink."

"My mom begged me to," Talia said.

After everyone said their selection color, Walsh place a CD in the player. "Philadelphia Chickens" started playing.

"Are you guys gonna intend up and dance, or are you feat to be likewise shy?" she asked.

"Too shy!" the kids chorused.

But after a some spins around the shack in a conga line, nearly every banter was wave his or her blazonry same a chicken. No digit was crying. The moms had every disappeared. Just same that, the 2011-12 edifice assemblage had begun.  

-- Casey Parks; Follow me on Twitter: @HlsboroReporter

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