BELLEVILLE, Ill. – Many more Illinois students are heading back to school Thursday morning. Among those starting is Belleville District 118.

Westhaven Elementary School is one of the schools in District 118. There is a ‘Welcome Back Patriots’ sign in front of the school. There are also more welcome-back messages written in chalk on the sidewalk.

The bell will go off at 8:25 a.m.

This has been back-to-school week for a lot of Illinois school districts in the region. Belleville School District 118 is home to several elementary and junior high schools. There are a total of 11 schools and about 3,300 students in the district.

After students here finish the 8th grade, they switch over to Belleville District 201, which has two high schools, Belleville East and Belleville West. Those schools started Wednesday.

District 118 Superintendent Ryan Boike says the district is committed to making sure that all students, staff, and families have a sense of belonging at school and in the community. That is part of the belonging that begins with the Belleville initiative.

Besides a focus on academics, Boike also told FOX 2 that there is an emphasis district-wide on social and emotional learning for students. Boike explained that there are new secure entrances to schools in the district, and each school also has new cameras and monitoring systems.

There are some 400 students at Westhaven in kindergarten through sixth grade, along with more than 90 staff members.