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Day One Mail Tribune / Steve Johnson The first few moments of kindergarten are an emotional time for Gina Allen and son Cory Kellogg-Allen, 5, who attended Laurie Staff�s class Tuesday at Griffin Creek Elementary School. Kindergarten enrollment is up slightly in Medford schools, while upper levels are experiencing larger increases and may need to shuffle classes to even out the load. By Vicki Guarino For more than 12,000 Medford students, the day after Labor Day is the time to renew school ties. But for 825 little tykes, it is the very beginning, the very first day of school. Elsewhere in the county, kindergartners will be arriving throughout the week; but in Medford, Tuesday is Day One for all students, setting off scattered traffic jams as buses and parents� cars circle into school yards. It is a morning young Cory Kellogg-Allen has been long awaiting. According to his mother, the prospect of school made Cory feel so grown up that he slept in his own bed, not Mom�s, for the first time ever. "He�s going to be fine; I�m going to be a nervous wreck," Gina Allen jokes as she watches her youngest son introduce himself to the caterpillars crawling up a screened cage, the stacks of colored paper, the boxes of crayons and the pile of plastic building blocks teacher Laurie Staff has arranged around the Griffin Creek Elementary School kindergarten room. Actually, Allen says, she�s as ready as her son is for school to start. Cory already knows his ABCs � all the way to Z, as a matter of fact � and counts to 20. "I�m fine," Allen says, "I�m ready. And I�m glad he�s in school, that he�ll be learning." On this day, parents are invited to stay with their children for an abbreviated school day. So Sean Neilson helps his daughter, Stacia, introduce herself to Staff and present her with a potted chrysanthemum: It�s never too early to make points with the teacher. Not only does Stacia now get to go to school with her older sister, she gets to see more of her grandmother, Darlene Hale, the Griffin Creek school secretary. Across the district, kindergarten enrollment is up slightly, from 804 last year to 825. In general, however, the enrollment pattern that emerged at Medford schools by Tuesday afternoon was one of small primary grade classes and much larger � often too large � upper level classes. Medford administrators will meet Friday to work out ways to even out class loads, usually accomplished by moving teachers from class to class within their school. All told, 12,158 students showed up on opening day, up from 11,999 on the first day of last year. In the first days of school, and much of the rest of the month, enrollment typically increases. Medford Superintendent Steve Wisely notes that 554 students registered the first nine days of school last year. Enrollment in Central Point schools is expected to be up this year, but school officials still are counting heads and tracking registration forms. Adding to the uncertainty, not all students started school Tuesday. Kindergarten begins Monday, and sixth-graders and ninth-graders had schools to themselves Tuesday for middle school and high school orientation. Central Point�s opening day did lead to a few overcrowding problems. Jewett Elementary, which has renovated locker rooms and stage space to make room for new students, still has some crowded classes. A realignment of school enrollment boundaries last year relieved the crowding problem, but the solution turned out to be only temporary. Central Point Superintendent Candy Manary is planning an administrators meeting Thursday to go over enrollment problems and add classes if necessary. Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA