It’s the first day of school not just for students, but for Mom and Dad, too

Unlike other schools, the first day of school at Barwell Road Elementary means there will be classes for both students and their parents.

Flashing lights, a “red carpet” and the songs “I’ll Be There” and “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” greeted hundreds of students and their parents Wednesday as they started a new school year at Barwell. Instead of dropping their children off, parents stayed all morning at the Southeast Raleigh school, both doing activities with their kids and learning how they can support them throughout the school year.

“It really is more than just making an introduction or showing kids the location of a classroom,” Tammy Carey, principal of Barwell Road, said in an interview. “It really is about how are we connecting families and the school together to help their child be successful.”

The unusual first day of classes is one of the ways that Barwell has taken advantage of being a “restart” school, a state program that gives lower-achieving schools the same flexibility that charter schools receive. The restart schools get additional flexibility when it comes to things such as setting calendars, spending state money and hiring teachers.

More than 100 schools statewide are using the restart model, including 19 schools in the Wake County school system.

Two Wake restart schools, East Wake Middle and East Garner Elementary, used their flexibility to switch this school year to the modified calendar, in which students get two-week breaks after every nine weeks of classes. They opened their school year on Monday.

State law prohibits traditional public schools from using the modified calendar, except for those that were using it prior to 2003. Exceptions are made for charter schools and most recently for restart schools.

Barwell has used the charter-like flexibility in the past for things such as offering 10 extra school days a year and providing students with after-school clubs on Thursdays.

Carey said the flexibility allows Barwell to use “staggered entry,” in which half the school reported for the first day of classes on Wednesday, with the rest coming in Thursday. The first full day for all students will be Friday.

Staggered entry is typically only used in elementary schools to ease kindergarten students into the experience of attending school. Carey said that splitting all 715 students up and inviting their parents to come helps create a more personalized way of starting the new school year.

Part of these half-day orientation sessions involves students performing teambuilding activities with classmates and with their parents. For instance, kindergarten teacher Rachel Foster had parents and their students answer questions such as where were they born and what were their favorite foods.

Foster also offered parents some practical advice about how kindergarten isn’t like it was when they were in school.

“Kindergarten is the new first grade,” she said. “You have to go in running.”

Expectation setting was also one of the objectives that Carey, the principal, set when she talked with parents. She told them that the school believes all children can be successful and that they will be held to high expectations.

“Our kids are going to have to struggle a little bit,” Carey said. “We need to work with them on that perseverance, and it doesn’t come easy. Sometimes new things are just hard.”

Many schools hold meet-the-teacher events before the school year starts. But new Barwell parents Donald Anderson and Latoya Wilkins said what they got Wednesday was more in-depth than they had received at their daughter’s previous schools.

“More schools should try and do this,” said Wilkins, whose 10-year-old daughter, Laniyah, is a fourth-grade student. “It gives you a chance to learn what your kid is doing and the different services that are available to you as a parent.”

This story was originally published July 25, 2018 at 4:16 PM.