NEWMAN – Students returned to the classroom Monday for the start of a new school year in the Newman-Crows Landing district, where early attendance reports brought generally positive news overall.

Based on the second-day attendance of 2,650 students, Superintendent Rick Fauss said, the district expects to meet if not exceed June’s closing enrollment of 2,656 students.

“Overall, we’re pretty happy with the numbers,” Fauss commented Tuesday. “They are about where we ended last year. It could be a lot worse.”

For many districts in the area, it is. Declining enrollments have become commonplace in regional schools, and Newman-Crows Landing officials worried that the impact of the housing crisis and widespread foreclosures could trigger an exodus of students over the summer.

School leaders will be keeping a close watch on enrollment trends through the early days of the new year.

Typically, attendance increases in the first few days of a new school year as students trickle back to the classroom. “We had 2,582 students physically present Monday, and we were up from that today,” Fauss said Tuesday. “We will take a count every day, and we are only counting students who are in class.”

The superintendent said that the opening day of school went generally well.

“There are always a few glitches, but nothing major that really stood out,” he commented.

The new student drop-off zone at Hunt School was open Monday, Fauss said, and helped alleviate congestion at the nearby four-way stop on Yolo and R streets.

“It went really well for traffic coming in. It is making a big difference, and parents were really great yesterday as well,” Fauss noted. “The only problem is that after the drop off their students, it is not safe for them to make a left-hand turn back out onto R Street. We are probably going to put a right-turn only sign there.”

New dress codes were in place at Orestimba and Yolo.

Fauss said six or seven high school students were sent home to change.

“We did have some kids who either challenged the dress code or just forgot about it, but not a large number. They did not have anything to change into, so we sent them home to change,” he explained. “I don’t know of any Yolo students who were sent home.”