If you see a procession of students walking along Flagler Avenue this morning, honk. If you see someone giving away free pizza on College Road, stop.

It's the first day of school for public schools, some charter schools and the Florida Keys Community College, and the students will be greeted by more than free food and a "Welcome back!"

School district

Key West High School seniors will march to the high school in their first-ever first-day procession, the brainchild of the school's new principal, Theresa Axford.

The walk won't be the only "first" and Axford won't be the only "new" thing students encounter this year. All three high schools and Sugarloaf School, Key Largo School, Stanley Switlik School and Horace O'Bryant Middle School have a new principal, and the district's 8,100 students will encounter a new way of being taught and tested, Schools Superintendent Joseph Burke said.

"We have seven new principals in the schools this fall," he said. "Most of them have had a couple of months to plan their opening. In the past week they've met with their teachers, planned their approach and set the tone."

Though principals have prepared, there's nothing like the first day of school to reveal glitches in the system. The first day also aligns with Burke's one-year anniversary as superintendent, when he knew few people and before he reconfigured his administration.

"I was just coming in and meeting people for the first time," Burke said of his Aug. 24 debut. "This year is going to be different."

Burke will visit the Key West schools while Chief Operating Officer Jesus Jara will visit the Upper Keys and both will visit Marathon, "to make sure things are running smoothly," Burke said. "We'll be unobtrusive, though."

Also new to teachers and students will be a process known as Lesson Study, a teaching improvement process that originated in Japanese schools. A team of teachers -- a group of math teachers, for instance -- design a classroom lesson they all can use. Before all teachers adopt the lesson, however, one teacher tests it on a class. The other teachers observe its effectiveness and improve it as they see fit.

"Some people had been using it voluntarily," Burke said. "This year it will be in all the schools."

The district also welcomes its first new charter school, the Sigsbee Charter School, in the former Sigsbee Elementary School. Parents, teachers and volunteers, including Navy officers, have been working all summer to fix and renovate the school for today's opening. They broke out old concrete in walls, retiled, repainted and improved the playground at the school.

The school is funded by opening grants as well as state education money that's apportioned per student.

Also new to students:

• Algebra I students in the eighth or ninth grade have to take a mandatory end-of-year exam;

• All schools will have mid-term and final exams in all subjects;

• Principals will hold student assemblies in the first weeks of school to go over the new student handbook, the first standardized, district-wide policy manual for students and teachers. It covers dress code, ethics, etiquette in some cases, and outlines steps students and teachers take in all kinds of situations; and

• Principals and assistant principals will be under a new program that measures their specific job performance issues. "We're going to assess the overall performance of about 40 administrators," Burke said.

Community college

Florida Keys Community College today will greet its 45th class since it opened in 1965, and officials want to make sure students don't go hungry.

"We'll have free pizza for students, as well as a live radio show playing music and talking to newly arriving students," college spokeswoman Amber Ernst-Leonard said. "Faculty and staff will be at the front of campus today, Tuesday and Wednesday to welcome students, provide directions and answer basic questions."

The touchy-feely greeting will continue with a cookout all day Tuesday and Wednesday. Students can eat free hotdogs, hamburgers and other fare.

"We don't want them to worry about a thing except getting their feet down," Ernst-Leonard said. "We want their first day to be as smooth and positive as possible."

There are a couple of new things that the students should find helpful, said FKCC President Larry Tyree. "We've expanded access to Smarthinking, which all students enrolled in credit courses will be able to access 24-hour online tutoring." The system provides access to live teachers for math, science, business or writing assignments. The college's library now has a mobile interface, so students can easily access library resources via their smart phones."

As of Friday, the school had 10 percent more students registered than last fall, with 1,216 stuudents this week, Ernst-Leonard said.

The school has finished the dredging of its dive lagoon, which will give dive students much better visibility when they build a marine ecosystem starting next week, she said.

Other improvements over the summer include a new outside seating area with umbrellas so students can eat and study outside, new sand in the volleyball court and a renovated student lounge, she said.

Students will meet the college's first dean of student affairs, James Heck, who was hired this summer. The former director of the Wyoming Community College Commission will manage complex financial aid processes, manual and online registration systems, student recruitment, in addition to overseeing student advisers.

Other new additions:

• Julie Bailey, the college's former director of instructional technology, has designed new online classes that match teachers' goals, style and curriculum.

• Five new nursing school instructors -- Leslie Laubmeier, Rachelle Richardson and Susan Bouson in Key West and Sheri Mathers and Patricia Murphy in the Upper Keys.

• The college also hired two new biology teachers, Sheri Hitz and Bob Bullis, English instructor Kerry Charron and math instructor Susan McClelland.

• Susan Freeman, the new head of Middle and Upper Keys classrooms now located in Marathon and Coral Shores high schools.

• The college will break ground on its new dorms and Marine Propulsion Technology building this year.

jguerra@keysnews.com