Once they crossed the bus and carpool-crammed Woodyard Road, Deras craned her neck to look for Jose, who had sprinted off quickly with a friend.

‘‘He was nervous and asked if he could go on ahead with his friend,” Deras said.

The line of parents and their wide-eyed children wrapped long around Melwood Elementary School in Upper Marlboro, and Deras shrugged as she was unable to find him. One last ‘‘good luck” probably wouldn’t have calmed his nerves any further, she reasoned.

With bags of notebook paper, tissues and pencils clutched in hand, students waited in their crisp blue uniforms to be directed toward their new classrooms.

‘‘I’m really elated to see this many parents out here today,” said Marilyn Salmon, the Melwood parent liaison.

Principal Carrington Smith and PTA President Charles Demmings had to wade through a sea of late students and their parents in the front office to make the first morning announcements of the school year. With the exception of three late buses and a few students turned away for not having paperwork completed, teachers said there seemed to be few hitches.

‘‘I did see one little girl crying because she didn’t have all her forms in and she had to go home,” Salmon said.

Farther down the crowded street, a group of Dr. Henry A. Wise Jr. High School students at bus stops were less enthusiastic.

Junior Jasmine Gray was feeling sluggish as she waited for her bus to appear.

‘‘This is early,” Gray said. ‘‘Over summer I’m on the phone all night.”

But energy was at a premium at Arrowhead Elementary School.

‘‘This one woke up at 4:30 in the morning,” said Delisa French of her daughter Nichelle, who started third grade on Monday. ‘‘I had to tell her to go back to bed and she did, in her clothes.”

Excitedly greeting old classmates, Nichelle said she was anxious to tell all her friends about her vacations to California and Wisconsin over the summer.

Fourth-grader Kyana Jernigan and her sister, second-grader Amaya, walked with their mother, Felicia, to the front steps of the school where Kyana spoke anxiously about the upcoming year

‘‘I’m going to the teacher that I really like a lot,” Kyana beamed.

Just as Amaya began to talk about the preparations for school, buying new supplies and getting her hair braided neatly the day before, the bell rang and she was off like a shot down the hallway to find the second-grade class to which she had been assigned.

E-mail Andrea Noble at anoble@gazette.net.