Applause and booming music echoed Thursday morning throughout Helen Arnold Community Learning Center as staff and faculty high-fived, hugged and cheered students returning from summer break.
There were, of course, some nerves and a couple of tears but also many, many smiles as new and returning students walked a makeshift red carpet through an archway of balloons. The unique first-day spectacle is a way for faculty to ensure students feel welcome and know they’re a priority at the Sherbondy Hill neighborhood school.
“This is how we make kids feel safe and sound,” Principal LaMonica Davis said.
The moment marked one of many first-day-of-school celebrations Thursday morning across Akron.
At Schumacher CLC in West Akron, Superintendent Michael Robinson, alongside the Akron chapter of 100 Black Men and school staff, greeted students and parents as they approached the building’s entrance.
“This is electrifying to me,” Robinson said. “Because it’s not just the first day of school. For some, it’s the first day of their educational experience, and especially with us at Akron Public Schools.
“This is where the real joy happens. At the school level; in the school.”
Joy and celebration at Helen Arnold
Following the red-carpet welcome at Helen Arnold CLC, students walked to the cafeteria for breakfast, where pastor Deonte Lavender asked about their plans. He then led them in a “HELEN! ARNOLD!” call-and-response chant before asking them to join him in prayer.
During the prayer, Lavender, who is a pastor at The Remedy, a nondenominational church on Akron’s north side, asked God to align his plans with the students’ and keep them under his care and guidance.
“These beautiful faces that we see in here are the faces that don’t get as much help, that are marginalized, that may not think that the people in their community are advocates for them,” Lavender said.
Last year, Davis said, Lavender led a prayer for a student who was shot over the summer. On Thursday morning, that student walked through the school’s doors.
Following breakfast and spirited rounds of cheering, students headed to their first period classes. Teachers utilize the first couple of days to introduce their pupils to classroom expectations, rules and routines.
Students: sleepy, nervous, happy, cool and excited
Rachel Brown, who has taught second grade at Helen Arnold CLC for 17 years, said the first-day celebrations instill a sense of community across the school population.
“The smiles coming through,” Brown said. “You know, that shows that we’re caring, that we’re glad to have them back. I think it motivates them to be back, and they’re excited.”
Brown has a class of 25 students this school year, larger than years past due to increasing enrollment at Helen Arnold CLC. She welcomed students to a room filled with posters.
She began the class period by calling for “Hands, hands, hands and eyes” to gather attention and focus. Students seemed to know the drill, gladly raising both hands and looking toward the 27-year veteran of Akron Public Schools.
She shared a book with students to help talk through first day emotions, gently corralling their focus the entire time and keeping them on task while they fiddled at desks.
In response to Brown’s questions about how they’re feeling to start the school year, students said they felt sleepy, nervous, happy, cool and excited.
Second grade at Helen Arnold CLC means the students are upstairs, taking classes alongside third, fourth and fifth graders. It’s a big step for students early in academic journeys.
“It’s exciting to see the new little ones come in, and from their starting point, to see where they can go toward the end of the year,” Brown said.
Next door to Brown is Tara Green, another second-grade teacher who has taught at Helen Arnold CLC for 13 years. She relied on a “soft start” to begin the day with kids, playing with Play-Doh, allowing them to calm down after the excitement downstairs.
“That’s a great thing that we do,” Green said of the welcome party to start the day. “All kids coming in, and teachers too, are nervous, our emotions are high, so it’s a great way to just bring everybody together and have fun and remember that we’re a big family here.”
Principal: ‘They will not open up to you if they don’t trust you’
Family is a running theme at Helen Arnold CLC. It’s a mindset that Davis, the 2024 APS Principal of the Year, has worked to instill in her staff and student body. She wants students to enjoy their time at the school and trust that her building is safe and warm. That’s why, a few years ago, she created the first-day celebrations.
The hope is that the students will want to return.
“That they feel that we are just as safe if not safer than home,” Davis said. “That they trust us, and they have to trust us first.
“They will not open up to you if they don’t trust you.”
Davis was a whirlwind of energy, smiles and big hugs for every kid who wanted one on the first day. She said that if the environment is welcoming, especially for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, everything else will fall into place.
“They don’t have to have the red carpet, they don’t have to have the music playing and the clap-in,” she said, “but to know that when they reach that door that there’s a sense of love and warmth and care.”
On the first day of school, there wasn’t a single child whose name she did not know. The faculty followed her lead.
“What they experience on the first day of school,” Davis said, “I want them to experience it every day of their year — the 170 days that they’re here.”
