“Smooth” was the word this morning as about 9,000 students in the Vicksburg Warren School District began the new year today.

“Everything has gone really smoothly, and I haven’t gotten any phone calls,” Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Duran Swinford said after rising at 4 a.m. to get ready for her first day. “That’s a great sign. That means everyone is delivering and everyone’s making it to school. I got off the phone with transportation and they said all of their buses ran smoothly.”

Swinford was met with a few small challenges, such as a broken air conditioner at Vicksburg High School, and tragedy, the drowning of a teacher on Sunday afternoon.

Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said two accidents were the only problems this morning, other than the normal first-day-of-school traffic snafus.

A wreck on Mississippi 27 at Paxton Road at 7:20 tied up traffic for about 40 minutes, he said.

Separately, at about 8:20, a low-hanging guy wire was hit by a school bus on Whatley Road, and a window of the bus was broken out when the wire popped. Eight students and the driver were on the bus, he said, but no injuries were reported.

Porters Chapel Academy’s 500 students also returned to school today, and Vicksburg Catholic School students are scheduled to return Wednesday.

After rising so early, Swinford toured as many schools as possible.

At VHS, she found the broken air conditioner, discovered Sunday, had been repaired by this morning.

At Vicksburg Junior High School, she saw that a new drive-through loop on the school’s east parking lot was being used for the first time.

“It’s not nearly as congested as it used to be,” VJHS principal Michael Winters said. “It’s been a quick drop-off and move-out.”

VJHS and Warren Central Junior High resource officer Joseph Bell, who directed traffic at the two schools, said he was grateful for the turnaround.

“Traffic was heavy, but it was smooth,” he said.

By 8 a.m., Winters said all, but about a dozen of his students had their schedules and were in class. Classes at junior highs are to begin at 7:32 a.m.

At the elementary level, the nearly 5,000 students returned to schools earlier than in the past.

The Board of Trustees approved in June time changes for the eight elementary and two intermediate schools. Students are to begin classes at 8 a.m. and end at 3:30 p.m., an extension from the previous start time of 8:20 a.m. and end time at 3:15 p.m.

“It was chaotic at a quarter until 8,” Sherman Avenue Elementary principal Ray Hume said. “But it was smooth afterward.”

Swinford, who was hired last school year from the East Baton Rouge Parish School District, where she was the superintendent of human resources, is going into her final year of a two-year contract.

Since being hired, Swinford has made numerous changes to a district that has been labeled “At Risk of Failing.”

She announced Friday during the district’s 24th annual convocation ceremony that the district had been lifted two notches from that label, which is second to the last on a seven-part scale, to “Academic Watch.”

“This school year, we will continue working on student achievement and increasing those test scores,” she said. “Increasing literacy across the curriculum is our main goal for student achievement, as well as tackling math and science in common core standards. We look forward to this coming year.”