Top: MHS senior Brent Eggar shows his enthusiasm while picking up his class schedule for the last time. Bottom: Second grade teacher Bettilou Stover puts together some artwork for her class at Mustang Elementary. Classes for Mustang Schools begin Friday. (Photos by Caleb Soptelean and Carol Brimm)

Mustang heading back to school

Stacy Barnes

There’s no denying the look: turned down lips, downcast eyes and sullen faces. Yep it’s back to school for Mustang students this week. And while the majority of students are soaking up the last days of their summer vacation, teachers are already hard at work preparing their classrooms for the pupils that will fill them on Friday.

Many students will see new faces at their school as the district’s administrators shuffled around over the summer. Four of the five elementary schools have a new principal or assistant principal. Angela Hunt is the new principal at Mustang North Middle School and Mustang Middle School and the mid high will see some administrative changes as well.

Advances in technology continue to improve parents’ ability to keep in touch with how their child is doing in school. The ParentConnect program, which began last year, allows parents to check grades and attendance for their children from the convenience of their home computer without having to talk to the teacher. Something new for this year is a calling system that can call every household in the district with an automated message in less than 30 minutes.

Another big change is the time for middle schoolers to begin their day. This year both Mustang Middle School and Mustang North Middle School will begin and end five minutes later than before at 8:20 a.m. and 3:10 p.m. respectively.

While five minutes may not sound like much, to those who drop off elementary students at other schools across town, it is significant and may serve to cut down on tardies or at least ease some tension in the car. All other school starting times remain the same with elementary schools at 8 a.m. and the high school and mid high at 8:35 a.m. .

The more things change, the more they stay the same and that becomes apparent by speaking to some of the students who are on their way back to school. When asked if he was excited about returning to class one MHS sophomore said, “No. It’s school. What’s exciting about that?” Another student said she was “kinda” excited to see friends again but qualified her statement.

“I’m not looking forward to learning and math,” she said, “but mostly math.”

But like it or not kids school is officially back in session on Friday. Enjoy the final days of summer while you can.