First Things First

By Linda Jacobson

Salinas, Calif.

Days before school started this year, Ross Luna practiced his locker combination at home, fretting about whether five minutes would be enough time to get to his next class on the spread-out, 17-acre campus of his new school. "Teachers forget what it's like for these kids," says his mother, Linda Luna. "They're terrified."

But when the first day of the 2000-01 school year arrived, the newly minted 7th grader didn't have to face the unknown by himself.

His mother was among hundreds of parents who crowded into the cafeteria of Washington Middle School here for what has become a new approach to the opening day of school. For the first day of classes, Aug. 23, all 37 schools in this central California community invited parents to visit classrooms, meet teachers, socialize with one another, and just share the day with their children in a...