Doors swung open Monday across Palm Beach County for the first day of classes for public school students.
At Grove Park Elementary in Palm Beach Gardens, there were more tears from parents saying “goodbye” to their little ones than from students being called in the doors by excited administrators.
Backpacks jingled with fluffy keychains, and students compared hair beading in the cafeteria before the 8 a.m. starting bell.
The school's population of 650 students is back together again after two years at nearby Lincoln Elementary so crews could modernize Grove Park’s 58-year-old school buildings. The new school, a mirror image of newly constructed Blue Lake Elementary in Boca Raton, is bright by nature and joyfully decorated by teachers eager to get the school year underway.
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Metal detectors cause headache in neighboring Broward County
Monday’s start appeared to go off without major transportation meltdowns or mass confusion, Superintendent Mike Burke said. Isolated complaints of late buses and delays entering campuses usually persist for the first few weeks of classes, he said.
But even isolated problems can be extremely disruptive. Didier Nussbaumer, a parent of a sophom*ore at Park Vista High, said his son waited for over an hour for the bus Monday morning starting at 6:20 a.m. After the bus didn't show, he and his friend hitched a ride to school — arriving well after the start of classes at 7:30 a.m.
After students get to campus, there's still one more hurdle to getting inside: This year, all high school students will also have to pass through metal detectors. The district-wide rollout came on the heels of a successful pilot program last year where four schools at a time began using metal detectors, first during summer classes and then throughout the year.
Newly installed metal detectors at high schools in Broward County caused major snares during the first day of school, according to photos posted online with hundreds of high school students crowding outside campus entrances. After wait times reached more than an hour, some schools suspended metal detector use and let students inside by checking ID badges, The Sun Sentinel reported.
Superintendent Howard Hepburn issued an apology online to Broward County students and families around 11 a.m. He said the district would continue working to improve the flow of students into campus to avoid the long lines and wait times students experienced Monday.
Online, parents and onlookers were incensed.
“BCPS decides to implement metal detectors. … With NO Plan … Spending First day of school in a Security line,” Jessica Vega posted in a public Facebook group, The Sun Sentinel reported.
Palm Beach County's first day of school 2024 showcased students from immigrant families, Spanish learners
The first day of the 2024 school year showcased Palm Beach County’s incredibly diverse student population and the programs designed to serve them.
Burke was on a campaign-like tour Monday, touting Palm Beach County’s newly redeemed “A” rating from the state after the district got a “B” in 2023. He sat at child-sized lunchroom tables to chat with students and held doors open for staff guiding lost kids around by the shoulders. Rarely did he leave a classroom without thanking students for letting him interrupt with an entourage of school administrators and district staff.
Around 9 a.m. at Hagen Road Elementary, new principal O’Mayra Cruz said the school’s enrollment in its dual-language program has officially outnumbered the number of non-Spanish speaking students.
Cohorts of students now take classes at the Boynton Beach school in both English and Spanish with the goal of leaving elementary school being fluent in English and able to read and write in Spanish.
By 10:30 a.m. at Spanish River High, history teacher Frank Torres was coaxing his class of 16 students, all of whom are new arrivals to the United States, to show their classmates where they were born on a map of the globe.
Most of Torres’ instructions to the class were in English, then repeated in Spanish by him, then translated into Portuguese and Russian by community language facilitators standing to the sides of students’ desks.
Torres, who was born in Ecuador, said he likes to remind students he was once a new arrival to the United States, too. Students in his class speak varying levels of English along with Creole, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Ukrainian, Russian, Turkish and Filipino, one of the two official languages of the Philippines.
“We’re trying to make this place feel like home,” he said.
Torres, and the school district’s 23,000 other employees, appeared to share that goal Monday.
Katherine Kokal is a journalist covering education at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at kkokal@pbpost.com. Help support our work; subscribe today!
