It’s hard to know who’s more excited for the first day of school — the teachers or the students.

Megan Hunt, a kindergarten teacher, begins her first day teaching with Oak Harbor Public Schools this fall. She’s got her room nearly organized and she met her new students at a welcome barbecue.

On a recent day, the room was all bright books, colorful cubes, kitchen play toys and tiny chairs.

“They are so excited to come to school,” she said. “All my kids were all smiles.”

And so is she.

Hunt, 25, is teaching at Oak Harbor Elementary, a school that will serve as a “kindergarten center” for 10 classes of the little ones — nearly 200 kindergartners.

“We are really, really excited,” said Oak Harbor Elementary principal Dorothy Day.

State lawmakers this summer approved all-day kindergarten for kids across the state. In the past, parents in the Oak Harbor school district had to pay extra for full-day kindergarten.

The change, while welcome, left Oak Harbor scrambling to find five extra classrooms and six kindergarten teachers.

District officials came up with a plan to move all of the kindergarten classes at Hillcrest Elementary to Oak Harbor Elementary, which is located off Midway Boulevard. The kids from Hillcrest will return there in first grade.

The district is providing transportation.

The district also freed classroom space for kindergarten at other schools by adding portables and remodeling Crescent Harbor Elementary. The older children will use the portables.

“Parents have been so excited to have full-day kindergarten,” said superintendent Lance Gibbon. “We’ve already seen academic gains for the children in full day. Providing that for everyone is a great thing.”

To make sure the children are getting a “rich, engaging learning environment,” the district is upgrading one playground at Oak Harbor Elementary and adding more equipment in September, Gibbon said.

Kindergartners at other schools are getting materials geared for full days and some things designed to stimulate their physical, social and emotional growth, such as kitchen play centers, he said.

All kindergarten teachers are receiving training to gear teaching toward a full day.

Enrollment in kindergarten is up by about 50 students this year. That number doesn’t include the P-8A Poseidon squadrons the Navy is relocating to Whidbey.

Most of those families won’t likely enroll their children in the district until next fall.