Lawerence Tran, 5, whispers something to his dad Thang Tran as he gets dropped off on the first day…

FREMONT — Children in teacher Orchid Wang’s kindergarten class didn’t say “bye-bye” to their parents, who crowded just outside the classroom door Wednesday morning, snapping photos of their little ones sitting at school desks for the first time.

With a little prodding from the teacher, they said “zia jian” as they waved goodbye to their moms and dads before Wang closed the door.

They were among thousands of students throughout the Fremont and New Haven school districts who started the school year Wednesday.

Moments after Wang’s class began, out came Pikachu, Hello Kitty, a dragon, and several other props — all geared toward teaching the basics of Mandarin Chinese.

If everything goes according to plan, these 28 students will be proficient in the world’s most spoken language by middle school.

Not surprisingly, nearly all of the 28 students in Fremont’s first Mandarin-immersion kindergarten class have at least one parent of Chinese descent, although English is the only language spoken in most of their homes.

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