Stephanie Castanares stood outside of Kauluwela Elementary's cafeteria, waiting to pay for her 8-year-old son Ian's school lunch pass.

Ian, a fourth-grader, scanned the school yard for friends and familiar faces.

"I get to talk to all my friends again," he said, adding that he was a little anxious about being in a new class with a new teacher this year.

While yesterday was officially the first day for Hawai'i's public schools, only a portion of the state's 177,000 students returned to class.

Students are expected to start school on a staggered schedule through Friday, but nearly all of the state's 253 public schools will be back in session by tomorrow, according to the state Department of Education.

The reason for the staggered start is that schools are allotted about six professional development days a year for teachers and they can be scheduled at any time.

Many schools opted to schedule a couple of those workdays at the beginning of the school year to allow classroom teachers time to prepare.

Kauluwela, nestled on 'A'ala Street in Downtown Honolulu, was one of 42 schools that began the school year yesterday. Principal Gwen Lee said most of the teachers had been preparing since Thursday.

Nora Oyama-Haugen, music teacher at Kauluwela, greeted parents as they escorted their children to their classroom.

"Oh, it feels great to be back," she said, observing that some students wanted a few extra days of vacation.

"It (the shortened summer) is good for the kids. They come back sooner and they don't forget a lot," she said.

Under the state's unified public school calendar, which was instituted three years ago, students get about six weeks of summer vacation. Many working parents have embraced the vacation schedule.

"Working full time, it's so much easier for my schedule for her to start early," said Aurelia Llamas, whose daughter Arianna was starting first grade.

Llamas arranged for Arianna's grandmother to pick her up from school in the afternoon on the days that she works.

"She really wanted to come back and see all her friends," Llamas said.

Amy Trigonis' 6-year-old daughter was also starting the first grade yesterday. Her daughter Stephanie clutched a plastic bag of school supplies. But Trigonis told first-grade teacher Ella Fujimoto that she didn't bring in her daughter's composition books.

"I ran out of labels," she said.

Meanwhile, across campus, parents of kindergarten students sat through a short orientation in the school's cafeteria. Lee read from the school's student handbook and the school's English as a Second Language teacher translated for Chinese parents.

Kindergarten teacher Connie Wattenburger said the students are normally very anxious about school starting, especially since this will be the first time that many of them are away from their parents for extended periods of time.

"They're so young, so you have to slowly bring them into the school environment," she said.

Over the next two weeks, the kindergarten students will be in school for half a day. After that, teachers will begin to introduce longer class sessions.