While students in the Riverbank Unified School District and the Riverbank Language Academy filled their lunch boxes and backpacks to start school a week ago Monday, Elementary and Middle School students of the Sylvan Union School District, including those at Crossroads Elementary, had two extra days off. Those students kicked off the year a little later, beginning classes on Wednesday, Aug. 12.

Cars lined both sides of the streets around Crossroads, with parents dropping off or accompanying their students to classrooms in the early days of the semester. Brand new teams of Safety Patrol students stationed themselves at the crosswalks around the school, working in coordination to keep students and their parents safe as they arrived for the new year.

Brand new Vice Principal Rebecca Harms was overseeing patrol students at the Prospector’s Parkway/Saxon Way intersection before school.

Also new on the Crossroads campus, in addition to the covered sandbox that was installed in the kindergarten playground during Love Riverbank last year, on the opposite side of the campus, this year a new covered shade area was installed during the summer months, next to a set of playground equipment there.

Between 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m., when the final bell rings for the start of classes, students, their families and their teachers were scrambling to help everyone find their proper place.

The next break students will have in both Sylvan and Riverbank districts will be Monday, Sept. 7, for Labor Day, followed by Nov. 11, Veterans’ Day. Then, it’s Thanksgiving, followed by three weeks for the long Christmas and New Year’s holiday break.