It was a few minutes before 7 a.m., Hammond Elementary School Principal Karen Zielinski, or Ms. Z, as her staff calls her, had been here since 6. A crew of office help, including secretaries and some volunteers, was here to greet parents and students and to keep the traffic flowing.

She said about 200 of the 600 students in kindergarten through fifth grade have called in saying they will not be attending class. That’s enough to offset the flow of parents driving kids to school, but, the principal says, ”We don’t know what to expect.” By 7 a.m., two students had arrived.

Ken and Martha Wagenbrenner pulled up in their sport utility vehicle and dropped off their two children, Arianna, 8 and Jason, 11. The family alternates between driving their children to school and letting them take the school bus, they said.

“We live so close and we’re self-employed,” Martha says. “It’s no big deal.”

Classes began at 8 a.m., but at 7:50 a.m. a couple of cars pulled up on the sidewalk between the school and North Mobley Road. That’s not allowed, and Assistant Principal Sheri Norkas walks that way to tell the drivers to pull into the driveway.

She says preparation is the key today.

“The office staff laid all this out yesterday,” she says, pointing to the cones directing drivers around the lot.

But the throng of vehicles wasn’t as large as expected, she says. The surge in drop-offs was offset by the number of absent students, she says.

At the end of the day, a similar drill is planned, she says, when parents arrive to pick up their children.

Office staff will be here late, possibly until 6 p.m., Norkas says.

“Or until all the kids are gone,” she says, “whichever comes first.”

Among the school workers who had scheduled a Good Friday off was Karen Carter, who teaches physical education at Hammond Elementary School. It wasn’t for religious reasons or because she had planned an Easter weekend getaway.

It was because the day-care center that keeps two of her three children was closed.

Yet, she showed up to volunteer at her school early this morning.

She opened a gate to a parking lot reserved for school employees and was waiting for two special-needs buses. She also was going to help out taking attendance, but after that, she’s heading home.

She has one child enrolled as a second-grader at Hammond and two others, a 4-year-old and a 19-month-old she will be caring for at home today.

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