It felt like they started school one day early at Bowman Ashe/Doolin K8 Academy.
It was meet-and-greet day, so there was a beehive of activity, with teachers getting a sneak peek at their students. Miami-Dade County Public Schools starts the new school year on Thursday.
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“A little anxious like every year, even after 29 years, I’m very excited!” said Lourdes Brito, who teaches second grade.
The anticipation of opening day, the excitement – it never gets old. Marlen Gamboa is in her 25th year of teaching. Does she still get nervous about the first day of school?
“I do. The night before, I’m up late thinking about it, and coming in, meeting new parents, I just get butterflies still,” Gamboa replied, and said the best part of that first day is meeting her class. “The kids, being with the kids, I love watching them learn and grow and just being excited about being here.”
The school is a STEAM magnet, which means the kids get arts and music, science and technology, and today they got a taste of the cool stuff they’ll be doing at school, like robotics and even an inflatable planetarium. Teachers know keeping students engaged is crucial to their success.
“The biggest challenge for me is understanding where the students are right now, we have a lot of testing that happens at the beginning of the school year, and I’ll be able to gauge what every student needs,” said Rachel Ruiz, a second grade teacher.
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“Teaching has changed a lot, in positive ways, we have a lot more technology now that us teachers are learning, also, the students, it helps us do things a lot faster, but in other ways, we have to keep up with the technology so we also get a lot of training to keep up and help serve the students,” Brito said.
Every educator we spoke to today said kids these days have shorter attention spans, perhaps fueled by social media consumption, and that reading comprehension is an issue deserving of their focus.
“Definitely, attention span has changed so I need to make things more exciting,” Gamboa said.
“I think the biggest challenge is always being able to balance everything, right, we live in a time when it’s just a little bit of everything,” said principal Aryam Alvarez. “It’s meeting the academic needs of the student, the mental health, the safety, so I think all those challenges combined together can sometimes be a lot, I think, it’s great because we like to think of the student as a whole and meet all of their needs.”
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