Wednesday had a different feel at several school districts across New York. Many students arrived to Oak Grove Elementary in Dutchess County with big smiles that weren't hidden by masks.

Gov. Kathy Hochul lifted the state’s face-covering mandate for schools Wednesday in areas experiencing low transmission of COVID-19, leaving masking policies up to those schools’ leaders.

Administrators of the Wappingers Central School District were excited to start the school day under a new "parents' choice masking policy."

Alizabeth and Aubree Rolls, sisters who attend kindergarten and third grade respectively, said they were looking forward to class without masks “because then we can breathe.”

“It makes me feel good that it’s parents' choice,“ their mother Ashley Rolls said, “and these girls can go in and feel safe and good.”

Principal Angelina Alvarez-Rooney said she was thrown off at first to see so many younger students without masks, since many of them had never been to school without wearing them.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen some of those kids’ [faces],” Alvarez-Rooney said. “So, I’m looking at these kids trying to decipher who’s who because I’ve never seen their faces.”

Several second-graders, masked and unmasked, said they felt similarly.

“I feel like today is like a new day,” one said. “This is my first time seeing everybody. I haven’t met them the last few years.”

“I can see everybody’s faces, and now I know what they actually look like,” said Evelyn, another second grader.

Like the younger students, some newer teachers are experiencing maskless classes for the first time.

Second-grade teacher Ashley Merritt is in her second year on the job.

“I’ve only had students with masks,“ Merritt said. “This is my first opportunity teaching a class with some maskless faces. It’s nice. It’s a new world for me.”

In this new world, teaching and learning will become easier, Rooney said.

“Especially in elementary school, it’s very hard when you don’t see the facial gestures to teach reading, for example,” she said. “We got to this spot finally, and we’re very excited that at this point now it’s your choice.”