Tokyo ( CNN ) -- Students in many districts across Japan brushed off their uniforms and shouldered their bookbags for the first day of the new school year on Wednesday . But while most were worried about meeting their new teachers or what their class schedules might be , some were facing the threat of nuclear contamination or the loss of former classmates . In Tokyo , a group of students evacuated from the Fukushima area began the school year in a new city and a new classroom . Keisuke Takahashi , 7 , is one of several children staying at a youth center in Japan 's capital as their parents in the north work or take care of worse-off family members . `` I just got a letter from my mom , '' he said . `` It says that she is hurting because we 're separated . But she says do n't worry , we will go home together after the nuclear power plant settles down . '' `` I have n't got used to the life yet , because I have to live separately from my mom , '' he said walking into the Minamisuna Primary School . `` I miss her . '' Up in northern Japan , where the worst devastation from last month 's tsunami occurred , the new school year has been delayed several weeks . Dozens of schools were wiped out or too badly damaged to reopen in Miyagi prefecture . Governments and educators are scrambling to repair schools , round up teachers and cope with the tens of thousands of displaced people . A different set of problems in Fukushima , where authorities have begun testing schools , kindergartens and playgrounds across the prefecture after parents expressed worries about high levels of radiation . Teams of researchers will monitor 1,428 locations over three days ending Thursday to try to reassure the public about safety outside the 20-kilometer exclusion zone around the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant . The testing coincides with the beginning of the new school year in the prefecture , as tens of thousands of students return to classes . `` As the elementary schools starts on April 6th , we 've heard many of the concern from the parents whether the schools are safe enough to have their children to attend , '' an officer at Fukushima Disaster Management told CNN . `` In response to it , we conduct to check radiation level to secure the ( safety ) of the children . '' Authorities have announced repeatedly that there is little danger of contamination in the region , but there are monitoring stations across the country on watch . Government surveys are being taken several times daily by authorities from the area directly surrounding the damaged reactor , focusing on radiation `` hot spots '' such as ponds , low spots and drains where snow runoff and wind would naturally concentrate radiation . The spots with the highest levels of radiation Wednesday were just northwest of the plant , outside the 20-kilometer zone , with one spot registering 50.9 microsieverts . In comparison , the J-Village emergency site where workers are stationed at the cusp of the 20-kilometer zone showed a reading of just 1.1 microsieverts . A person in a developed nation is naturally exposed to about 3,000 microsieverts a year . The readings fluctuate over the day and change with wind patterns , but could also be showing that small amounts of radiation from debris and dust continue to come from the reactor site . No information is being released for sites inside the exclusion zone . The information , compiled by the Ministry of Education , Culture , Sports , Science and Technology ( MEXT ) , may eventually help create a `` minefield map '' of spots and transportation routes that are better to be avoided or closed off to the public . And in Tokyo , the radiation level has been dropping over recent days , as low wind speeds have limited the scattering of radiation from the north . CNN 's Junko Ogura , Whitney Hurst and Greg Botelho contributed to this report .
Some students evacuated from the Fukushima area start school in Tokyo . Dozens of schools in northern Japan are wiped out or too badly damaged to reopen . Some parents stay in northern Japan to work or take care of worse-off relatives .