DURHAM - In school lobbies across the Triangle this week, young children were spotted clutching their mothers' hands, many afraid to step into a big new school.

It was a comfort to have mom around, even for Valerie Griffin-Puryear, principal at one of five new schools in Durham.

While Griffin-Puryear raced around W.G. Pearson Magnet Middle School tracking bus arrivals on the first day of school, her mother calmly answered phones in the office.

"I'm just volunteering," Addie W. Griffin said with a smile. She sat beside the school secretary, fielding questions about schedules and gym uniforms.

"She's always been one of my biggest supporters," Griffin-Puryear said of her mother's visit. "It just kind of kept me focused and calm for the day."

Her mother joined other important visitors, including Superintendent Carl Harris and school board Chairwoman Minnie Forte-Brown. Forte-Brown went to elementary school at Pearson, and her mother was a teacher there, too.

"I think it makes the kids feel really good that their parents and grandparents went to school here," Griffin-Puryear said.

The school is more than 80 years old and underwent $300,000 of renovations over the summer. Workers are still fixing up the gymnasium, which should have a new floor by the end of September, Griffin-Puryear said.

Elsewhere in Durham, new academies have opened within Southern and Hillside high schools. And Voyager Academy, a charter school not affiliated with the Durham Public Schools district, has opened in northern Durham.

At Northgate Mall, students arrived in business-like polo shirts and khakis for their first days at the Performance Learning Center, an alternative high school.

The school, which opened with just 70 students, is paid for in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and allows students who are behind or have dropped out to catch up on credits through computer-based learning and internships.

Skye Lee, 18, had already bought her graduation cap and gown last year while at Northern High School. An unplanned pregnancy delayed her graduation.

Now with a 3-month-old boy, Lee is balancing work and school. The small high school starts later, at 9 a.m., and if students only need a few credits, they don't have to stay all day.

"I think it's going to be fine," Lee said.

Like other new schools, some pieces had yet to fall into place at the alternative high school. The partitions that separate four of the school's six classrooms still haven't arrived. And math teacher JoanE Robinson is waiting for a cabinet to house her supplies, leaving more room on her desk for her Mr. Potato Head doll.

Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools opened a new school this week, too, when about 600 students in grades nine through 11 arrived at Carrboro High School.

Administrators served as substitutes for the two career and technical education openings that have not been filled, said district spokeswoman Stephanie Knott.