Back to school on a summer day

A new school leadership welcomed students as they returned to class in the District yesterday, while a new piece of technology awaited students in Montgomery County.

Photo Gallery:Back to school

In the District, the past 10 weeks of planning for the new year under Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s new school administration have been an overall success, city school officials said yesterday.

“The bureaucracy and the layer of confusion about how decisions have been made and will be made have been eliminated,” Mr. Fenty said at a press conference at River Terrace Elementary School in Northeast. “We’ve hired a world-class team to run our school system.”

Mr. Fenty’s administration took charge of the city’s 141 schools over the summer.

The school system has 20 new principals and 410 new teachers. There were 49,390 registered students yesterday, school officials said.

“This year students, parents and teachers will know that education is a top priority,” D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee said. “I am committed to ensuring teachers have the supplies and resources they need for student achievement as we embark on this important period of transformation.”

Mrs. Rhee said the system has filled 99 percent of the schools’ textbook and education material needs, a month after a mix-up threatened to leave half of students without them. Throughout the transition, the central warehouse delivered 54,000 books to schools, school officials said.

Yesterday, several parents said they were happy with the improvements.

Malika Walters, 30, of Northeast, enrolled her 5-year-old son in kindergarten at Young Elementary School in Northeast after she was dissatisfied with her son’s experience at a charter school last year.

“I’m confident in Rhee,” Miss Walters said. “I’m looking to see their vision for the school year.”

Still, others faced familiar disorganization while trying to register their children for class.

Carmen Douglas, 40, of Southeast, waited more than three hours to register her son for ninth grade at Ballou Senior High School in Southeast.

“If they were more organized during the registration process, they could focus on some other issues,” Miss Douglas said.

Ballou Principal Karen D. Smith said this year she got staff from the school system’s central office to help but still had to wade through an influx of late registrations.

Story Continues →