Except for traffic jams at large southern Moore campuses, the 22 public schools reported a smooth opening on Wednesday, with 10,790 children starting the 2000-2001 school year.

Moore County Schools Superinten-dent Dr. Pat Russo called it a “great day, a wonderful opening across the county.” Russo had visited all the campuses in the county on Wednesday and Thursday. “Children were in class, listening to their teachers,” he said. “Teachers were functioning and working as last year.”

Russo knew about traffic congestion at Pinecrest High School, with 1,400 students reporting the first day, mostly in private cars— and also at the new Southern Middle School, with 799 students in grades 6-8 the first day, also being driven mostly by their parents.

He plans to make a presentation at the Aug. 25 school board workshop meeting on ways to encourage school bus ridership and improve the transportation system in general.

On the first day, 250 more students reported to class than on opening day last year.

By the 10th day, 11,138 are projected to be attending Moore County Schools, up over 11,068 who were here by the 10th day last year. The 10th day’s attendance is used by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction to make classroom teacher allotments for the year.

Schools had 11 new principals this year, and there was an air of excitement mixed with anxiety among children starting at new campuses, particularly sixth-graders going to middle schools, and high school freshmen.

Overcrowding was not an overriding problem this year, since a 1998 bond issue has provided money for renovation and improvement at campuses, and the third of three new middle schools — Southern Middle — opened.

“I like this school better,” said new Southern Middle School seventh-grader Jeremy Wyatt, 12. “It’s got room and faster, better computers, and it doesn’t smell.”

Jeremy is one of 799 children attending the first day at the consolidated middle school for 6-8 grades from older schools in Southern Pines and Aberdeen. The old schools are now Southern Pines and Aberdeen Elementary and Primary schools.

“We’re making do,” said Principal Bill Moore, whose staff had reported to the new weeks ago, moving things in from the old Aberdeen Middle, arriving at 7:30 in the morning and staying until after 9 at night to get ready.

The Southern Middle school gym is not ready yet and students will use the finished tennis courts and multi-purpose room for physical education for about three weeks. But new computers — 140 at the school, counting office and classroom ones — are networked and may be used to call up student working files anywhere in the building. Science lab equipment is still on order, but for the time being old equipment brought from the former middle schools in Aberdeen and Southern Pines is being used.

Westmoore Elementary cafeteria is still being renovated, and lunches are being served for now in their multi-purpose room.

Traffic Congestion

Now that Southern Middle School is open, with one small exit off Johnson Street and another off Magnolia from U.S. 15-501 and U.S. 1 between Southern Pines and Aberdeen, more than 800 students must make their way through narrow, two-lane roads that converge in front of the new school. Because it’s the first few days, most parents have been bringing their children, but that should fall off as more children take the bus and carpooling begins.

Traffic pours in from the north along Johnson and from the south to Magnolia, with the N.C. Department of Transportation planning an extra turn lane along Magnolia.

Pinecrest High also reported long waiting times in line for parents waiting to drop off their children both in the morning and afternoon — particularly as the cars wound from a stop light on U.S. 15-501 up the narrow school driveway. More than 1,400 students reported the first day. More than 1,600 are expected this year.

“With some transportation flow problems at Pinecrest and Southern Middle, both principals are working with Will Garner, the resident engineer with the N.C. Department of Transportation,” Russo said. “A maximum contributing reason for the traffic congestion is that so many people don’t use the school buses.”

Carpooling Urged

The lengthy amount of time children sometimes have to spend on the bus is one of the reasons cars are used so much. Russo said his own stepchildren carpool for that very reason.

But bus transportation needs work all over Moore County. In some places there are inconvenient routes that have students spending a lot more time on the bus than officials would like. Southern Middle will get two new buses to add routes for children who used to be able to walk to school when the middle school was in Southern Pines, but now must ride, said Lori Messer, schools transportation supervisor.

Such problems aside, “Opening day couldn’t have been any better,” said North Moore High School’s new principal, Keith Kremer.

Enrollment at the small northern Moore school was up on the first day to 543 students, compared to 495 who were there when the 1999-2000 school year ended last May.

North Moore High School’s bus routes were erroneously listed to be picking children up as early as 4:30 a.m., said officials. Some children are picked up right before 6 a.m. but no earlier, according to Assistant Principal Bill Shields. Letters have gone home to parents to correct the timetable mistakes.

At places like Sandhills Farm Life, a new drive-in route for parents was made, sending them off the two-lane rural road that runs in front of the school to the back drive and then to the former bus parking lot. Traffic looped around and came back out onto the highway smoothly, officials reported. Most parents drive their K-5 children to school there, with only four buses in use.

Parent open house nights were held at most schools the Monday before school opened. At most schools, attendance was good.

Pinecrest Principal Tony Cates told The Pilot he had 1,688 students in grades 9-12 with schedules in their computer system, but the no-shows reduced those actually attending on Wednesday to 1,487.

A walk around Pinecrest’s huge campus at midday Wednesday showed the place almost deserted. Cates liked the sight, since it meant “they are where they should be — in class.”

The same story was happening at New Century Middle School, the largest of the new middle schools, where 785 children reported the first day. The school, in the Carthage area, has a capacity of 850, the same as Southern Middle.

Guardians and parents were standing in the school office Wednesday. One was waiting to register a child who had recently moved in from Michigan. Also being registered was a former home-schooler who was returning for her seventh-grade year at New Century after spending three months last spring in home school.

Upset Stomach

A mother waited for a couple of hours in the office to see whether her entering sixth-grader was going to have to be taken home, sick.

“He said he had an upset stomach, and he threw up coming over here,” she said. “But he’s got a delicate stomach, and I think it’s nerves.”

By the end of the day, teachers all over the county heaved a combined sigh of relief and exhilaration as they waved good-bye to children leaving in buses.

“I was new, and they were new,” said one teacher about her sixth-graders entering New Century. “But we all did well, and I’m glad the first day is over.”