'The best day': South Florida students head back to school

BOCA RATON, Fla — Tens of thousands of Palm Beach County students returned to school on Monday.

"This is the best day of the school year. Always," said Dr. Allison Castellano, the principal of Spanish River Community High School in Boca Raton. "It's absolutely amazing to see all the students coming back and refreshed and excited for a new school year."

It's an especially exciting and proud year for Castellano after Superintendent Mike Burke said the district believes Spanish River achieved an impressive 100% graduation rate last school year.

"It's unofficial, but we believe their graduation rate is 100%," Burke said. "They dominate in the classroom academically, and they also have quite a group of student athletes. So I'm just really proud of Dr. Castellano. I think she sets the standard for how to run a really well organized, high achieving high school."

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Castellano credits the school's success on students and teachers who embraced changes to state testing requirements.

"We all have pride in excelling and doing the absolute best we can do," Castellano said. "Our mission here is to ensure that every student reaches their highest potential. And we want to do the best we can to accelerate them while they're here to, hopefully, not only allow them to be successful at the next level, but also, hopefully, help them get a college scholarship."

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For many students at the high school level, it was their first time walking through a metal detector on campus.

Palm Beach County schools started the year Monday with metal detectors on every high school campus following a pilot program last year.

Castellano said the staff at Spanish River practiced with the metal detectors a lot at the end of last school year and learned ways to get students through the devices more quickly and efficiently.

According to Castellano, returning students had no issues with the metal detectors on Monday, and there was a little bit of a wait as freshmen figured out the system and how to put their student number in.

"We were all in class on time. It's absolutely a good experience this morning. Our students came early and well prepared. And we had our people stationed and ready to show them the way through the stations. And no issues at all," Castellano said.

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As far as our other local school districts, Indian River County will continue using metal detectors on its two high school campuses.

Leaders in Martin, St. Lucie, and Okeechobee counties said they are exploring the option, but are not ready to add metal detectors to their campuses at this time.

Farther south in Broward County, it was a very shaky start to the new year as 31 high schools rolled out metal detectors for the first time. It led to very long lines, with reports of hundreds of students still waiting to be screened outside West Broward High School as the first bell rang.

Broward County Public Schools issued an apology to high school students and families on social media, saying the district is "committed to improving this experience and will be making necessary adjustments."