No troubles as students return

SOPHIA MAST was nervous Tuesday morning about her first day at Lancaster Mennonite High School.

The 14-year-old freshman had spent her entire academic career at one small school - Kraybill Mennonite - and was worried about transitioning to a campus teeming with 800 students.

"All through elementary school, I had never changed schools at all," she said.

To help ease her worries, Sophia's older sister, an LMS senior, went over her sibling's schedule Monday night and drew Sophia a map to her classrooms.

"Once I got there, I figured out where my classes were, I saw people I knew, and everything went smoothly," Sophia recalled. "There really was no need to be nervous."

Sophia's stress-free first day was the norm, according to Lancaster Mennonite officials, who said Tuesday's opening was one of the smoothest in memory.

The school system's four campuses - Locust Grove, Kraybill, New Danville and Lancaster - welcomed about 1,500 students for the new year, kicking off the reopening of school in Lancaster County.

On Monday, most county public schools will resume classes, and the following day, all Lancaster Catholic High School pupils will be back in the classrooms.

School District of Lancaster students return Sept. 2, Columbia reopens Sept. 7, and Warwick starts its new year Sept. 8.

Tuesday's opening was the first for Lancaster Mennonite's new high school principal, Elvin Kennel.

After greeting students as they got off the buses for the 8:15 start of classes, Kennel spent most of his day roaming the school.

He observed the goings-on in classrooms, halls and the cafeteria, where he tried to match students' names with their faces as their photo IDs popped up on the cafeteria cash register screen.

"There are a little over 800 students on this campus, and being able to say a student's name is really important," Kennel said.

The former principal of West Fallowfield Christian School, Kennel is no stranger to LMHS.

He graduated from the high school in 1979, and his daughter Rachel was a member of the 2010 graduating class. His son Benjamin is an LMHS junior.

Since Kennel attended, the school has become much more diverse, he said, with nearly 90 international students and many more pupils from urban areas.

"It certainly has changed since 1979, and we're all the richer for it," he said.

The curriculum also has been changed in recent years to reflect the global nature of society.

The school has expanded the scope of many of its social studies courses this year.

It's also adopted a new math curriculum focusing on problem-solving that is an outgrowth of the Everyday Math courses taught at LMS elementary schools.

The high school also has added an advanced-placement Comparative Government and Economics course, and students can now take an SAT-preparation course during their weekly club period.

Another change for the new year involved swapping the daily chapel service from first period to third period.

At Tuesday's inaugural service, the school's four new faculty members read from Scripture and performed music with students, and LMS superintendent Richard Thomas read "The Little Engine That Could" - a long-standing first-day tradition - to an enraptured audience.

Kimmel said it was a great way to start off the year.

"Just coming together at chapel and feeling like we're all in this together was a wonderful feeling," he said.

Brian Wallace is a Lancaster Newspapers reporter. Contact him at bwallace@lnpnews.com.