Donna Bigos was marking her 34th straight first day of school, with the past 10 as a kindergarten teacher. The newest students would start later that night, with a scavenger hunt to familiarize them with their new surrounding, and Wednesday would mark their first day with the entire school community.
“It’s always exciting to see new faces. There are joy and tears, on the faces of both children and their parents, Bigos said.”
With her first 2016-17 address to the school community, principal Anne Hartman reminded the students “to be kind to one another, and treat everyone with dignity and respect, and the kindness that we want shown to us.”
Referencing the new kindergarteners to begin later that day, she told the first-eighth graders that she mentioned to “the kindergarteners that they have 300 new brothers and sisters. Look out for them,” and teach them, she emphasized.
As she greeted teachers, students and parents with a warm smile and words, she called Christ the King School “excited, and abundantly blessed, to have 350 students this year, to learn, love and to serve the Lord.”
The school will dedicate this year to the church’s latest recognized saint, Teresa of Calcutta, and “honor her grace and grit,” she added.
“We’re on a mission of faith, to strengthen children’s lives, and by doing so, strengthen the life of the church,” she said.