Two more Central Florida school districts began classes Monday.
Students in Seminole and Marion counties headed back for the school year, joining Brevard and Sumter counties.
There are more than 600 bus drivers in Seminole County.
In an effort to keep students informed, Seminole County Public Schools will be giving their youngest bus riders an identification bracelet that will have all of their bus information on it. The bracelets are also designed to help teachers get the youngsters on the correct bus and make sure the bus drivers deliver the students to the correct stop.
Walt Griffin, superintendent of Seminole County Public Schools, said all students can expect something new this year, including kindergarteners. The youngsters will see new lessons using computers.
"Our big changes this year in elementary (are) we are introducing computer coding to every single kindergartner," Griffin said Monday morning from the district’s bus depot. "They will be interacting with a robot called BEE BOT, which is a little bumblebee."
Students will learn how to program the bumblebee's movements. Teachers went through training about two weeks ago to learn to use iPads to program the BEE BOT.
In Marion County, 273 buses hit the road to make more than 3,000 bus stops. Students headed back to school a week earlier than normal. The district also had some newly funded teaching positions by a tax referendum, which actually put the district in a hiring crunch.
At the start of last week, the district still needed to hire 100 of about 500 open teacher positions, but district officials insist operations will run smoothly on the first day of school.
Marion school buses, by the way, will log more than 6 million miles this school year, which is more than 12 round trips to the moon and back if you could drive it.
The remaining districts in Central Florida — Flagler, Lake, Orange, Osceola and Volusia counties — begin school Monday, Aug. 24.