By Nicole Falco
By all accounts, expectations for the first day of school were met. Students in Districts 13, 24, 30, the Central High School District, Blessed Sacrament and Holy Name of Mary School reported back Sept. 3. Teachers were back Sept. 2.
The soggy weather kept students indoors during lunch recess and dismissal was wet, but those were the day's only snags.
Otherwise, students spent the day getting acquainted with their new teachers, classmates and classrooms. Most teachers, including Rae Risolo, delved right into their lesson plans. The students in Risolo's fourth-grade class at the James A. Dever School practiced their multiplication tables, and even learned a few tricks to help make multiplication easier.
Meanwhile, kindergartners had a whole new building and routine to get to know, and teachers and administrators had a whole new list of names to match with faces.
Margaret Otton, a kindergarten teacher at the Carbonaro School, wasted no time getting to know her students. Otton already had her students' first names down by lunch. Her students, as well as Norma Firigno's, had their first story time. The classes read "The Kissing Hand" by Audrey Penn.
Kindergarten students weren't the only new faces walking the halls in Valley Stream schools. It was Dr. Elizabeth Lison's first day as superintendent of schools in District 13; Wheeler Avenue School students said hello to their new principal, Christine Zerillo, formerly a sixth-grade teacher at the school; Dr. Lisa Conte is the new principal of the Robert W. Carbonaro School; William Fahey took over as principal of Blessed Sacrament School; and Dr. Marc F. Bernstein was welcomed as interim superintendent of the high school district.
District 30 celebrated the much-anticipated opening of the Washington Avenue Kindergarten Center. The center was once the district's administrative offices, which have been relocated to 175 North Central Ave. The center is the new home of the Clear Stream Avenue School's kindergarten classes.
District 30 had much to celebrate. Besides the new kindergarten center, other improvements completed over the summer include a new computer room, a new library, a refurbished play area and new classrooms at the Forest Road School, and a refurbished kindergarten play area, a new library and a new computer room at the Shaw Avenue School.
