(Geronimo) — It’s back to school today for students in the Navarro ISD. The first day of school brings with it a welcome from new Navarro ISD Superintendent Luke Morales, who says that he is excited about the start of the new year.
Morales says as classes resume, it’s important for parents and community members to remember that traffic will increase around the schools. He says it’s important that everyone exercise a little bit of patience.
“The traffic flow for some students and some parents will be the hardest. You know there’s a lot of crying when we drop off our little ones –– especially when we drop of the kindergarteners and our Pre-K students, first grade. So, patience, number one, with each other as we’re dropping people off, as we’re saying our goodbyes. It’s an exciting time, but it’s also a terrifying time for the young guys because they’re going to school sometimes for the first time. And I remember going through that with my little ones. So, patience, we’ll get through that process,” said Morales
Morales says not only do drivers need to be patient, but he says they also need to use extra caution around the district’s campuses. He says roadways will be more congested starting today.
“Link Road for us is pretty narrow and only two lanes so we have to be patient with each other. As we are going through there, we also have to be safe. They can also expect an increased presence by law enforcement. I want to make sure everybody is safe; everybody is moving in the right direction and make sure that our kids are being taken care of. Our secondary guys will be just as excited. We have some areas where they will come in and kind of talk a little bit. We’ll supervise them. We will have them ready to go and get them started,” said Morales.
Navarro ISD, much like other districts across the state, spent a significant amount of time over the summer reviewing its safety protocols in an attempt to make sure that kids stay safe. Morales says folks will notice a few changes, especially at the junior high campus.
“Our secondary folks here at our junior high campus will see increased fencing in and around this junior high. This was probably the poorest area that we had so we’ve increased that. We want to slow things down and funnel people into a certain area when they want to come into a building, so we want to eliminate accessibility all the way around – installing a vestibule here at the junior high where people have to come in and be buzzed in and kind of slow down that process, not just have free rein. We will have an increased presence by our law enforcement. We have conducted our summer audits and our door audits as mandated by the governor of Texas and our Texas School Safety Center,” said Morales.
Morales says they also looked at security measures at all campuses. He says they wanted to make sure that people are well-trained, and they also wanted to make sure there were no security lapses that they were being missed at other campuses.
“We’ve also done a partial summer audit and looked for our weak areas in and around the campus so as we are going through the year, put in some deterrents in those areas so we can eliminate accessibility and people having access to our particular campuses. The other part of that is training – training our staff to make sure that we know how to respond to an emergency, to know how to challenge people that maybe don’t have the proper identification that are trying to get on our campus or have come to our campus and are visiting but haven’t gone through the proper channels to make sure we are following that established protocol,” said Morales.
The first day of school is always an exciting time for students, but it’s also exciting for Morales. This is his first day of school as the new superintendent of school, after being selected by the Navarro ISD Board of Trustees earlier this year. Morales has been a fixture in the district for a long time, but he’s looking forward to leading the district now in his new capacity as superintendent of schools.
“I’m extremely thrilled to have been named the superintendent in a very special place. This is a very special district to me and I’m just extremely excited about the opportunity to lead the district and kind of be the person in charge and hopefully continue that tradition of excellence that has been established long before I got here and while I’ve been here as well but we are extremely excited about that opportunity and ready to take on the challenge and ready to move the district forward,” said Morales.
Today is also the first day of school for Pre-K students at the Seguin ISD’s Ball Early Childhood Campus. Other Seguin ISD campuses officially started the year on Monday. Students in the Marion ISD kicked off their new year on Tuesday.