OAKVIEW ELEMENTARY — Barb Nyberg put one picture book on every desk Monday morning and then walked around Room 6 slowly, stopping at each chair.

She has done some version of this for twenty-three years.

Tomorrow begins the twenty-fourth.

Nyberg was the first teacher into Oakview after the floors were waxed in July, as usual. She rotated the reading corner a quarter turn, as usual. She cut the name-tag tape before the class list arrived because “the class list is an August document,” as usual.

What is unusual is the date.

School starts September 2, five days before Labor Day, which means the room that usually spends this week waiting will have children in it tomorrow.

Nyberg says the room does not care.

“Kids come in when kids come in,” she said. “The bulletin board is not aware of the Legislature.”

Her third-grade class has twenty-four students. The picture books on their desks are not assigned. They are there so Nyberg can walk the room the way a third-grader will and see what the room looks like when something belongs to each child.

Megan Tollefson, a 2017 Lakeside graduate beginning her first fall back in the district, stopped in Monday carrying a box of laminated name cards and said Nyberg’s room was already farther along than hers.

“That is because Barb started in July,” Tollefson said.

“It’s called being on time,” Nyberg answered.

Dale Brandt said the district’s veteran teachers are especially useful in an unusual calendar year because almost every operational question has a precedent except the date printed at the top.

“The buses work the same,” he said. “Third grade works the same. The first day is still the first day.”

At 2:40 Monday, Nyberg moved one book because the cover was facing away from the door. She tested the pencil sharpener, counted the glue sticks in the shared bin, erased a faint summer note from the board and stood in the doorway for a while.

Then she said the room was ready.

Twenty-four children will decide tomorrow whether she is right.