YONKERS, N.Y. Some students were looking forward to reuniting with old friends. Others were eager to get their first assignments.
Regardless of the reason, Thursday was met with plenty of excitement in Yonkers as some 26,000 city students headed back to the classrooms for the first day of school.
Its always great to have the kids back, Principal Marwan Sayegh said as he welcomed students into School 30 in east Yonkers. The building just doesnt feel right when the kids arent here. And once theyre here, its alive.
Thursday was an exciting time not only for the students but also for Sayegh. The former principal of Paideia School 24, Sayegh was one of four principals in the district who were getting acclimated to new buildings.
Its a new beginning for everyone, he said.
Outside, students bustled around the schools entrance, saying their goodbyes to parents while greeting classmates and administrators as they prepared to start the new year.
Ive been waiting to go back to school. Ive been looking forward to it, seventh-grader Juliana Wilson said. I missed my friends.
While students will have plenty of opportunities to reconnect with old friends, district officials say they also will have opportunities to make new ones as more than 1,000 additional students enrolled in the Yonkers public schools this year.
District officials have estimated that Yonkers is 4,000 seats short, as it begins the new year with the biggest class sizes in more than four decades. Superintendent of Schools Bernard Pierorazio has said the district is considering leasing a shuttered parochial school on North Broadway to help accommodate the extra children.
But as Pierorazio stood outside School 30 on Thursday, greeting children as they climbed off the bus, he said the school year was getting off on the right note.
Everything seems to be going very smoothly, he said.
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