Sites and sounds: Salem-Keizer goes back to school
6:51 p.m. PDT September 7, 2016
Lockers opening and closing. Masses of students walking through hallways. Teachers giving start-of-the-year speeches. Name games. Crisp zippers on school-colored clothes.
There is so much to see and hear on the first day of school.
Perhaps you noticed an increase in traffic as you drove to work Wednesday? Yellow school buses driving every which way?
After all, about 41,000 students had places to go, people to see, things to learn.
The Salem-Keizer School District is almost in full swing since all grades — excluding kindergartners — began the 2016-17 school year Wednesday.
Kindergartners will start September 14.
At Grant Elementary School, the students began the year with their regular schedule, changing from their main room to certain elective classes, like music and physical education.
Children were lining up to switch rooms, talking and playing, looking around, and wearing all sorts of fun clothing. One girl wore a pink, princess dress over her clothes.
Victoria Gomez, a first grade teacher at Grant, said the first day was “perfect.”
“I just love to teach,” she said, smiling as she spoke about her students and the first day.
Gomez has taught in the district for six years, after having taught in Guadalajara, Mexico for 30 years.
For the first day, her students played name games and started to learn the ropes.
Gomez said they read a book about a little boy who forgot his name and got lost in the city. He couldn’t find his way back to the school for his grandmother to pick him up.
She said she used the story to stress the importance of learning your name and your friends’ names.
Gomez has 30 new names to learn.
Contact Natalie Pate at npate@StatesmanJournal.com, 503-399-6745, or follow on Twitter @Nataliempate, Facebook at www.facebook.com/nataliepatejournalist ornataliepate.com
Natalie Pate 