Tuesday marked the first official day back to school for approximately 75,000 New York City public school teachers. Plenty of educators, though, have been back at work for days, readying their rooms and putting thought into first-day plans.

Among them were staff members of P.S. 191 on the Upper West Side, which just moved into a new building on the corner of West End Avenue and West 61st Street. The new facility welcomes visitors with brightly colored tiles, a row of skylights over an internal staircase, science labs, music and art rooms, an outdoor play area and a new library — staffed, no less, with a full-time librarian. Also, the building is fully air-conditioned. 

"I cannot wait to see the look on the kids' faces on the first day of school," said Lauren Keville, the school's principal. 

Some teachers, Keville said, had even been moved to tears by the new space.

"It's more than just a building," Keville said. "This is really about equity and this is really about ensuring that our students are getting these new and exciting opportunities."

P.S. 191's move was part of a contentious school rezoning approved last fall, aimed — at least in part — at better economically diversifying schools in the neighborhood near Lincoln Center. P.S. 191, which was located across from Amsterdam Houses, a public housing complex, historically enrolled a large majority of low-income students. Most of its students are non-white.

Meanwhile, schools 10 or more blocks north of P.S. 191 enrolled just a tiny percentage of poor students.

City officials redrawing the zone lines would not use words like "segregation" or "integration" in its presentations, but they did redraw P.S. 191's new school zone, at its new location, in a way that would eventually remake the school's demographics: the city projected that, after the rezoning is fully phased in over several years, P.S. 191's student population would be about 25 percent low-income, down from 78 percent last school year. 

So far, families appear to have embraced the new P.S. 191, now called the Riverside School for Makers and Artists. Enrollment is up by about 50 students, according to unofficial numbers. There is a wait list for pre-k, Keville said, and the school added another section of kindergarten. It also added a new third-grade class for gifted and talented students (there's a wait list for that class too).

During a quiet moment last week, one of the school's kindergarten teachers, Michela Dixon, pointed out where she planned to set up the play area (next to the expanse of windows) and how she would create a cozy reading corner (adjacent to the rug) as a focal point of the room.

The first several weeks of the school year, she said, would be about helping wide-eyed 5-year-olds feel comfortable in the new environment.  

"As adults, we just remember, kind of, the magic of childhood," said Dixon. "But when they're experiencing it, it's very hard to ask a 5-year-old to sit on the rug and pay attention for an extended period of time."

Aside from the stacks of books Dixon was unloading, everything in the classroom was new: the rug, computers, the wooden tables and chairs, a pint-sized armchair and sofa, and Dixon's wooden rocking chair. 

Her students return to school on Thursday.