HERMISTON — It was a big day for Hermiston School District’s youngest students as kindergarteners and first graders spent a day in person with their teacher for the first time on Wednesday, Feb. 17.

“I want to come back every single day,” first grader Fabian Aguilar said.

He and his brother Damian, also a first grader, were among the dozens of children greeted by a parent as they trickled out of Sunset Elementary School after a morning of learning inside. The afternoon shift of students would arrive about an hour later, after classrooms were sanitized.

Fabian said his favorite part of his first day was the math.

“You have to draw something and tell your partner,” he said.

Damien said his favorite part was getting to dance for a few minutes. Both boys said they liked learning in person better than on the computer.

Brighton Tompos, wearing a mask with dinosaurs on it under his glasses, also said he liked being with his teacher in person better than over video. He said he had fun, and learned about math and other subjects.

“My favorite was when we read a story,” he said.

First grade students got part of their school year in person last year before the pandemic canceled classes in March 2020. But for many kindergarteners, it was their first time in a classroom. Sunset Elementary kindergartener Delilah Jaimes said she had fun on her first day, talking quickly as she ran down a list of things she had fun doing.

“We were reading a funny story about a monkey,” she said before launching into a description of the plot.

Sunset Elementary School Principal Jerad Farley said before the first day of hybrid learning that he was looking forward to seeing students in person and they had been working hard to prepare.

“The staff are just raring to go,” he said. “We’re really excited to see our kids again.”

Each day, half of the school district’s kindergarteners and first graders will attend in person in the morning, and half in the afternoon. When they’re not in the classroom, they will be working on school work online.

Farley said the divided schedule will allow schools to keep students in small cohorts of about 10 students, minimizing their chances for exposure to COVID-19 and allowing for the required 6 feet of space surrounding each students and other safety requirements. Those 6 feet will be maintained not only in the classroom, but in hallways and outdoors.

“We’ve put visible marks outside and in the building to help with that,” he said.

Farley said that may be a difficult adjustment for some students, particularly kindergarteners who haven’t been in a classroom before.

“These kids haven’t been socialized with what school normally looks like,” he said. “They’re used to sitting on the couch or at the kitchen table, eating snacks whenever they want, so it will be an adjustment.”

On the other hand, teachers already have some experience with young students coming back to the classroom after the district was allowed to bring back a few students in categories, such as special education or English language learners. Farley said what they have observed in those cases is that the extra few months learning from home from their teacher first helped some students with the transition, creating less anxiety about separating from their parents than is typical for a “normal” first day of kindergarten.

Not all students got to go back on Feb. 17. In an open letter to the community, the Hermiston School District Board described the return of kindergarten and first grade as a “springboard” that the district plans to use to continue bringing back more students.

Shane Robinson, a parent of middle school and high school students, said he hoped he would see his students return to the classroom before the end of the year, but he felt doubtful.

He noted that even as the district was able to bring some students back for limited in-person instruction, students who on paper are getting good grades may be struggling in other ways.

“People think of school as there’s the writing, reading and arithmetic, but it’s also the socialization of band, drama, things like that,” he said.

He said he wanted to see increased communication from the school district about what parents can expect. But he also praised the district’s teachers for their efforts in a difficult situation, and said he was pleased with his children’s teachers.

While Robinson gave credit to teachers for their work through the distance learning phase, at Sunset Elementary, Farley also gave credit to Hermiston parents, who he said had risen to the occasion “phenomenally” as well.

“I have been so overwhelmingly impressed with parents and how they’ve adjusted to this new normal, so to speak,” he said.