On the first day at Parkview Elementary School, in the Meridian Public School District, librarian Keila Wright worked on at least two related tasks. She reviewed guidelines for behavior with the students in the library, and she also tried sparking what she calls “higher-order thinking” — right from the first meeting.

In a session with third-graders, Wright read the book “Wemberly Worried,” by Kevin Henkes, and she punctuated the reading with questions about the characters.

“Why do you assume that the other girl, Jewel, worries?” Wright asked, and the children began to analyze Jewel’s actions.

The library, Wright explained in an interview, is a resource where children can check out books, but it’s also a place where students come for sessions on a regular basis and engage in discussions. For Wright, it’s vital to draw connections, during those discussions, between the themes in the books and their own lives.

“We’re trying to get them to think about their actions,” she said, noting that she’s especially pleased when students root their thinking in books they’ve read. She recalled the way one student mentioned the Titanic as she described her worries that a ship she’d boarded recently might sink.

“I asked, ‘How do you know about the Titanic?’” Wright said. “I thought most were going to say ‘movies,’ but there were just as many who said ‘books.’ That’s what I like: for the kids to go back and recall things they’ve heard about in a book, and not just television all of the time.”

The first day at Parkview Elementary School also featured the beginning of Eric Boone’s tenure as principal. Boone, who was assistant principal at Northwest Middle School last year, said he plans to be closely involved in the workings of the school.

“You have to inspect what you expect,” he said last week, as he prepared for the first day. “You have to be able to be in those classrooms. You can’t let anything stop you. A million things are going to come at you every single day, but if you’re not making the time to go to those classes, you’re not being much of a support to the teachers, and you’re not making the connections with the students.”

What also seemed to be in the minds of educators at Parkview Elementary School leading up to the first day were the ways adults sometimes sink into the minds of children in unforeseen ways. Wright recalled a teacher who inspired her when she was in the second grade — her first African-American teacher, she explained.

“I want to be that role model,” she said.

Boone said he, too, recalled an educator who made a strong impression on him and helped cultivate his goal of pursuing a career in education. The educator was a young, 24-year old man who served as assistant principal.

“To see him be so young, so energetic, so engaging — it was an inspiration,” Boone said. “To see that young male have that position, I thought, ‘I want to do that.’”

The teacher-student connection was also on the mind of Christi Gilliland, who teaches second grade at Parkview Elementary. As she prepared for the first day, she remembered a student in a recent class who had a strong personality — and a personality that, at the beginning of the year, was not emerging in constructive ways. Gilliland said she saw “a lot myself” in that student, and so she gave her tasks through which she could channel her energy and, as she put it, become a leader.

That strength, or even the stubbornness, was not something Gilliland wanted to erase from the student’s personality.

“I saw (the situation) as, ‘You’re a strong woman,’” Gilliland explained, “‘and you can take that and do good things with it.’”