First goodbye

Through misty eyes, parents bid their little darlings a tearful adieu as the kindergarteners take their first tentative steps toward independence.

By MELANIE AVE

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 13, 2000

WEST MEADOWS -- The kindergarteners at Clark Elementary School didn't know it, but the meaning of the moment showed through the misty eyes of their parents.

As moms and dads dropped off their 5- and 6-year-olds who sported Mickey Mouse backpacks and unusually quiet demeanors, the adults lingered in the classroom. They snapped pictures.

They said goodbye to their little darlings, but several ran back, like mom Trudy Fuller, for "just one more hug."

They knew. They just knew.

Wednesday wasn't just the first day of school for their kindergarteners but an important passage of life, the beginning of the inevitable loss of innocence and move toward independence away from them -- good ol' Mom and Dad.

These children -- babies, really, as mom Diane Acken put it -- were indeed growing up.

They walked into the public school system wearing Pokemon sneakers. And 13 years from now, if all goes well, they will leave high school with tassels on their mortarboards and maybe, just maybe, bright futures.

With all the attention given to children on Hillsborough County's first day of school, here's a glimpse at the first day from a different perspective, the eyes of several parents of kindergarteners.

Laura Alford could be described as an experienced kindergarten mom. Two years ago, she and firstborn Cameron went through a tear-filled goodbye when she dropped him off in Mrs. Arnold's kindergarten classroom.

He bawled.

She walked away, but peered in on him through the glass door, her heart breaking.

On Wednesday, it was her youngest child's turn, Lauren, a talkative 5-year-old with hair like a Barbie doll and a pink princess hat hanging from her bedpost.

Shortly before the 8 a.m. start time, the three of them walked together to Cameron's second-grade classroom. Lauren, eager to get to her classroom, waited impatiently at the door.

"Come on, Mom," she said, marching ahead in her black Mary Janes.

Inside room No. 205, again Mrs. Arnold's classroom, Lauren took her seat next to Braeden and waved bye.

Her mother didn't cry. How could she?

Lauren couldn't wait to be in school like her big brother and ride the bus every day.

But her mother worried just the same.

Laura Alford walked around the classroom, made sure Lauren was okay, and asked teacher's aide Cathy Russell one last question: "Will you go to lunch with them today?"

"Don't worry, Mom," Russell said reassuringly. "I'll take good care of her."

Down the breezeway, a special breakfast for kindergarten parents was under way. At the "Cougar Cry," the Clark PTA handed out plenty of tissues and encouragement.

PTA president Rachel Bauer has been through the kindergarten experience three times, and with each child, she said, it got easier. She's not sure how it will go when her 2-year-old, her youngest, goes off to school.

"It's hard to let them go," she said. "You realize they're growing up. It's hard to drive up at school and say: "Okay, here you go. I know you don't know anybody, but . . . ' "

Acken stood by the table of cookies in the cry room, thinking about Brian, who had tucked his teddy bear into his backpack "just in case."

"It's definitely been harder for me," she said, holding a plate with two cookies to give to Brian after school. "He wasn't at all nervous. He just picked up his crayons and started coloring."

Showing a brave face, Acken joked about staying in the cry room all day. She eventually went home, but not before a stroll past Brian's classroom, where the children sat at the teacher's feet and listened to a story.

Across the room, David and Lisa Mastrorio waited in the doorway of the cry room. Large tears welled in Mrs. Mastrorio's eyes just moments after leaving Carissa in the hands of her teacher.

"This seems so permanent to me," she said, not sure whether to stay or leave. "Until now, it's been the parents who meet their every need.

"Now, I kind of take a back seat."

- Melanie Ave can be reached at (813) 226-3473 or melanie@sptimes.com.

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