First day of school: A year of classes, quizzes, games and memories awaits

They have known this day was coming: First day of school.

First day of kindergarten. Blink. First day of senior year.

The school year dawns Tuesday, Sept. 3, in most districts across the Lower Hudson Valley. Day 1 of 180 in the long calendar from now till June.

Outfits have been fretted over and perfected, either to make a personal fashion statement or to fit in without drawing any notice whatsoever. Back-to-school lists have been consulted with precision, their must-have items secured. Or not.

Parents will insist on first-day photos. Older possibly jaded students, if they're wise, will roll their eyes and endure it.

High school seniors will walk taller than they did last June; ninth-graders will take their first tentative high school steps.

At kindergarten drop-offs, there will be tears, some of them from students, many more from parents.

Middle-schoolers, beset by the four horsemen of the middle-school apocalypse — expectation, anticipation, uncertainty and hormones — will swallow hard and face the inevitable.

First day of school.

A lot will happen between now and June. Those kindergartners will learn their literal p's and q's, what being in a classroom involves, how to make friends and, if they choose, how to stay within the lines when they color. Middle schoolers will navigate the social upheaval that comes with the age. And those seniors will make decisions that will set the course of their post-graduation lives.

Football games. Pep rallies. Instagram. Quizzes. Soccer matches. Tests. Volleyball. Friendships made. TikTok. Sleepovers. Midterms. Fall dramas. A presidential election. SATs. Parent-teacher conferences. Report cards. Dances. Winter break. Basketball. 2025. NYSMMA. Band concerts. Field trips. Lacrosse. Friendships lost. The spring musical. Spring break. Track and field. Regeneron Science Talent Search. Prom. Softball. Clap-outs. Graduation.

It's a new school year for teachers, too.

First day teaching. Blink. First day of their last year before retirement.

Hudson Valley schools: When does your district start? What big issues loom?

Which is why what happened at Ossining High School ‒ the week before the first day of school ‒ seemed somehow fitting.

The football team was practicing on one field, runners on another, when all of Ossining's teachers converged on the high school last week. They parked wherever they could, finding spots on the grass when the parking lots filled. They gathered in the school's auditorium, in the orchestra seats and in the balcony. Latecomers stood in the back of the theater.

When the lights dimmed, a couple dozen members of the high school's marching band came down both aisles — drummers, flutes, sousaphones, saxes and drums. Once they reached the front of the auditorium, they turned and played over the heads of the assembled teachers, some of whom clapped along to a Daft Punk medley, others capturing the moment on their phones.

The band will play at the Pearl Harbor Memorial Parade on Dec. 7 in Hawaii, but on this day, before that first day, they were here to welcome back their teachers and administrators.

Because everyone knows a parade starts with a single step. Why not have a band get you all marching in the right direction?

On the first day of school.

Peter D. Kramer is a 36-year staffer who writes long-form narratives on a variety of topics. He has written recently about an Orange County cold-case murder, about affordability and development, and breaking news. His story looking back on the Oak Street fire in Yonkers won a national Headliner Award for outstanding news specials/feature column. Reach him at pkramer@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: First day of school year brims with promise