SCHOOL DAYS:

Kids and teenagers across Newport Beach and Costa Mesa summoned the energy to crawl out of bed before 8 a.m. Tuesday and head back to school, their first day back after the always-too-short summer vacation.

Students from the district’s 22 elementary schools, two middle schools and seven high schools showed excitement, unhappiness and ambivalence on their first day back.

“It’s just another regular day at school,” said Anahi Enriquez, an eighth grader at TeWinkle Middle School. “It’s not a big change.”

Meanwhile, seventh grader Jacri Wright was excited about school, showing up nearly an hour early for classes. “I’m nervous, I want to make sure he keeps his grade-point-average up. He had a 3.2 last year,” his mother, Ivone, said.

Both were part of an early crowd at TeWinkle, where new principal Kirk Bauermeister had set up a pancake breakfast.

Though school means the end of summer for children, for parents it means something else.

“A new phase of our life begins today,” said Jeff Duncan, who with his wife, Gabriella, took the couple’s children to Mariners Elementary School.

“Freedom,” she joked.