They wouldn't know it from the 90-degree temperatures, but thousands of area children are nearing the end of their summer vacations.

The 2007-08 school year is just around the corner for nearly 17,000 students in Camden, Chowan, Currituck, Pasquotank and Perquimans counties. With the start of school comes new faces, new buildings and new rules to learn and live by.

Students in several area schools will be greeted by new principals when they arrive. In the Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Public Schools, Terrell Jones will be the new schools chief at Central Elementary; Lindsey James will take over the reins at P.W. Moore Elementary; and Andrea Adams will be in charge at Sheep-Harney Elementary.

In the Camden County Schools, Melvin Hawkins will be the new principal of Camden County High School, while in the Perquimans County Schools, Sylvia Johnson will be in charge at Perquimans Central.

Students at Pasquotank County High School will say hello to a new interim principal after Sept. 7, when Patti Hamler leaves the district for a job in the Wake County Schools.

Ongoing construction during the school year means some students will also see a change in their surroundings. Camden students in grades 4-6 will begin attending classes in the new Camden Intermediate School, currently being built next to Grandy Primary School, in January.

Also in January, Perquimans County High School will begin the transition to a brand-new gymnasium. The school's basketball teams will split their home games between the current facility and the new gym.

In Edenton, a former National Guard armory is being converted into a high school Junior ROTC classroom as well as locker rooms for several sports. Renovations are expected to be complete in March 2008. Several Elizabeth City schools will gain new roofs and Weeksville Elementary School will add two new classrooms and some office space.

High school students in several districts will be able to take advantage of new partnerships that are powered by technology. In Perquimans County, students will be able to earn college credits through iSchool, a virtual learning collaboration with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Online learning will also be featured in Currituck County, where the North Carolina Virtual Public School program allows students to receive instruction from more than 150 teachers across the state. Both programs are offered at no charge to students.

Camden's technology-driven CamTech High School will begin its second year with a new group of 60-plus freshmen and Elizabeth City's River Road Middle School will benefit from $30,000 in equipment and stipends courtesy of a Hewlett-Packard Technology for Teaching grant.

School districts are also turning to each other for inspiration in improving local education. The Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Board of Education approved a Ministers Council this summer that allows clergy and laymen to volunteer in the classroom.

Likewise, Currituck County's new drug testing policy is modelled on approaches used in neighboring counties, such as Dare and Camden. The policy calls for random drug tests to be administered to high school students involved in athletics or other extracurricular activities as well as those with on-campus parking privileges. The school is not notified after a first positive test.

Edenton-Chowan schools will crack down on student drug use another way. The Board of Education gave approval for the sheriff's department to begin conducting searches with a specially trained dog at John A. Holmes High School. Similar searches could follow at Chowan Middle School.

For more information on the upcoming school year, contact your child's school.

(Contact Zac Goldstein at zgoldstein@coxnc.com)