Jon Ben-Asher introduces himself to students at Henry Elementary School on the first day of classes. The principal of two schools plans to spend Mondays at Wrightstown and Fridays at Henry, with hopes that the other days will sort themselves out. It helps that the schools are not far apart.

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Jon Ben-Asher dropped into classroom after classroom, asking students to put away pencils and glue sticks, and look up at him so he could give his opening-day spiel.

"All eyes on the target. I'm the target," he would say.

Indeed.

Ben-Asher, a 40-year-old going into his seventh year as a principal, will split his time between Wrights- town and Henry elementary schools this year. He's one of seven principals sharing schools, a reprise of a cost-saving and efficiency plan that worked so poorly in 2005 that the Tucson Unified School District canned it after one year because of parents' complaints.

It's back. When the Governing Board approved the shared-principal plan in May, it was pegged as a way to chip roughly $500,000 from the then-looming budget shortfall after the board decided not to close any of the four small schools that had been facing possible closure.

The other school partners: Borton Primary and Holladay Intermediate; Manzo and Jefferson Park; Rogers and Sewell; Davis and Roskruge; Carrillo and Richey; and Bloom and Van Horne. Wrightstown and Rogers were up for closure.

None of the schools is facing a school-improvement plan. Stipends will compensate lead teachers who can step in if need be during an absence.

And combined, the pairs are expected to have numbers not too far off from the average district elementary school, which has 486 students.

In Ben-Asher's case, he has about as good a gig as he could expect. He presides over a scholastic universe of fewer than 400 students, with 125 so far at Wrightstown and 265 at Henry.

Both schools are labeled "highly performing."

Both schools have their own organizational strengths. In the case of Henry, it has a solid teaching corps that's fairly self-reliant. In the case of Wrightstown, it has hyper-involved parents.

They're just miles apart. Ben-Asher likes to tell students he can get from one to the other as fast as they can say "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt," although as the day went on, he switched to the giggle-inducing "as fast as you can microwave popcorn."

Ben-Asher will spend Mondays at Wrightstown and Fridays at Henry, with an as-yet-undefined mix in between.

There will be a learning curve.

He can easily solicit a collective Panther growl from Wrightstown students. That doesn't work as a unifying theme for the Henry Gila Monsters, because no one was able to identify what they might actually sound like.

He has Wrightstown's three big school rules down pat — make good choices, work hard and have fun. For good measure, though, he jotted on a small cheat sheet Henry's four B's: Be safe, be responsible, be respectful and be caring.

And at least for now, he's fairly anonymous at Henry, walking the hallways unaccosted even during the organized chaos at dismissal — something that just doesn't happen at Wrightstown.

Still, no fires came the first day.

There was some sniping in front of Wrightstown before school by two estranged parents. There was a parent of a Wrightstown kindergartner unhappy with a 27-pupil class size, and another who wanted a different class placement.

At recess, a Wrightstown kindergartner was missing Mom and having a hard time on the playground, big tears rolling down her face. She clung to his hand the whole time for the rest of recess.

Otherwise, it was a day to convince the schools that neither will have more importance than the other.

"Henry is home, and so is Wrightstown. I'm a full-time principal at two schools, not a half-time principal at two schools," he explained.

Not afraid of eating the lunches dished out at school — he said they're hot and convenient when he's on the fly — he plopped down at the cafeteria table with a mob of Henry kids for some bonding over chicken nuggets. He talked about kittens. A big "Lord of the Rings" fan, he talked about Middle Earth. He accepted a challenge to a game of checkers.

Aisha Gamble, a 9-year-old in fourth grade at Henry, said she liked him, adding that he made her laugh. "He's very friendly, and he's funny," she said.

Cherie Armstrong, a customer-service representative, sat in on Ben-Asher's introductory remarks to her 8-year-old son's classroom.

"I got a very good impression," she said. "I love how he expects children to excel and exceed. My son needs to hear that."

She wasn't worried, she said, that her school would get short shrift in the split-principal program. "From the impression I get from him, he's positive and enthusiastic, and I'm optimistic about the year."

Scott Lucas, who teaches fourth grade at Henry, was likewise unruffled about the change. He taught with Ben-Asher years ago, when Ben-Asher was a fifth-grade teacher.

"When I heard about it, I thought it would be fine," Lucas said. "I know that he'll attack the job with great enthusiasm. We also have an extremely competent and professional staff at this school, so I'm sure we can handle it."

At the end of the day, after Ben-Asher had collected a few hugs from students as they all went home, he acknowledged that he was tired. He took one last tour of the school, closing the gates and picking up an abandoned snack bag of Goldfish from the playground.

"It was the first day," he said. "I'm sure it isn't going to be this easy every day, and things will come up. But I think things are in good shape.

"I just have this real sense of mission and urgency. It's a big job and I want to do it right."