Students reunited with teachers and friends on the first day of class for the city’s public school system Thursday.

“It’s really fun and I like to be here,” student Stella Ann Eperson said.

At P.S. 257 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, students filed in. First grader Angelica Jean Lewis is eager to join the national title-winning ballet team at a magnet school for the performing arts.

“I’m going to first grade, I’m going to go to ballet, I’m going to learn, I’m going to do everything,” she said.

The school held a block-party style kickoff to the year in the courtyard, joined by Mayor Eric Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks. As a DJ blasted music, students posed for photos and were all smiles.

“I’m excited about my friends and going to make new friends,” Alyssa Zays said.

One student said their goals for the year were to play and have fun. Principal Melvin Martinez said it’s all about creating a welcoming environment for his students.

“Learning could be fun. That’s always been my motto. Learning could be fun. Make it exciting for kids so that they want to come to school,” Martinez said.

The new school year marks the second year of the roll-out for a new reading curriculum in elementary school and a new math curriculum coming to high schools, as the city seeks to standardize education across the system. Here’s a quick rundown of what parents and students should expect:

Top Issues This School Year

• New math curriculum for high school students: The city is rolling out a new math curriculum for nearly all high schools. The curriculum takes a problem-based approach to learning algebra and was used in 260 schools last year. Reaction from teachers who have used the new curriculum already is mixed.

• Next phase of reading curriculum for elementary students: The city has touted a new literacy curriculum dubbed "NYC Reads" to reverse longstanding low proficiency rates for public school readers. But one year into the program, scores on state reading exams went down. The new approach was used in about half of the city’s elementary schools last school year and will be used in all of them this year.

• Cell phone use in schools: Every school currently sets its own policy on the use of cellphones. Banks said he expected to announce a new citywide policy this summer, but Mayor Adams slowed down that timeline.

In an email to principals Thursday, Banks encouraged them to pursue policies restricting phones in classrooms as the city continues to consider citywide policy changes for the future.

“I am strongly encouraging them to take steps to move forward with some kind of a restriction. It’s not a mandate. If a school has 7,000 kids, they haven’t figured out how to do this, they don’t have the funds to do it just yet, they don’t have to do it,” Banks said.

So far, more than 300 schools already have cell phone bans in place, and the chancellor says about 500 more have indicated they plan to pursue a ban during the course of this school year.

Meanwhile, the city has officially opened 24 new school buildings in time for the first day of classes, Adams announced Wednesday.

The new buildings will house 11,010 new K-12 seats for public school students, marking the most new K-12 seats opened by the city’s School Construction Authority in one year since 2003, Adams said.