APS kicks off a new school year in unfamiliar territory

On her first day of second grade, Harmonie Abitia woke up before her mom — but that wasn’t because she was dying to be back in school.

Sure, Harmonie was excited to see her friends at La Mesa Elementary School. But to be back in a classroom, when she could be swimming at a beach, or visiting Carlsbad with her grandmother, as she did over her summer break?

“Enh. Not really,” the 7-year-old, dressed all in light blue and with her braids up in a ponytail, told the Journal.

For thousands of students like Harmonie, school started back up on Thursday, a full week earlier than last year for many as part of a revamped academic calendar Albuquerque Public Schools implemented in response to new state law requiring students to be in school for more hours every year.

APS parents and community members have in the past vigorously rejected proposals to spend more time in school. But on Thursday, the district’s new reality didn’t seem to be on their minds as much, and school campuses instead came back to life and buzzed with excitement.

“The first day of school … that’s always an exciting time,” Superintendent Scott Elder said. “This is just a great day all around.”

At La Mesa, students with brand new, themed backpacks walked hand in hand to the front of the school with their parents, who clutched white plastic grocery bags filled with school supplies as the shrill whistle of a crossing guard filled the air.

Some children were quiet, nervous, and even looked a little scared. Others paced around the front of the school, expectant looks on their faces as they searched for friends they hadn’t seen for weeks, and screamed and laughed with glee as they joyously reunited with them.

Shelbi Morgan and Ivette Gomez, for example, hadn’t seen each other for months. So as soon as Shelbi stepped off the bus at Kennedy Middle School, Ivette — who took a second to recognize her, because Ivette didn’t have her glasses — sprinted to greet her. Shelbi caught her, wrapped her up in a big hug, and twirled her around before setting her back down.

“I was just really happy to see her,” Ivette said.

“(We’ve gone) through a lot together. And we know each other’s backstories,” Shelbi added. “For us to come back on this first day — it’s really exciting.”

There were still those who were a little nervous about walking back through the front doors of school — like La Mesa fourth grader Iker Aguilar-Morales, who shed his fair share of tears as he parted with his mom Thursday morning.

Luckily, Elder, on his regular, first-day-of-school tour through Albuquerque, spotted the young man and helped take his mind off his nerves, walking him through the front gates of the school and handing him off to one of his friends.

“He was making him … more (calm),” Vanessa Aguilar-Morales, Iker’s mother, said about Elder. “He was trying to distract him, basically, so he could feel better.”

This school year, APS also announced new bell schedules for most of its schools, some of which are significantly earlier than they were last school year.

That has prompted some concerns from parents, who have worried about the impact altered start times could have on students’ wellbeing, and from teachers and their union, who worry longer hours will impede their ability to improve their craft as educators.

But at La Mesa and Kennedy — both of which, to be clear, are seeing later start times this year than they did last year — community members didn’t seem to mind.

“The only feedback I’ve gotten has been very positive about the time changes,” Kennedy Principal Laura Chiang said. “I had students tell me that they were happy that they didn’t have to be woken up by their parents, parents very happy they did not have to shake and shake and shake their kids to wake them up.”

Elder acknowledged the bell schedules will take some getting used to, and that it will be “difficult” and “disruptive.”

Even so, he said the new times do have “the potential to be one step in helping us improve student outcomes.”