By the calendar, there are still seven weeks of summer remaining, but for roughly 10,000 kids in Columbus and Lowndes County, the season ended Tuesday.
Today is the first day of school for public school children here, a day accompanied by all the things you typically associate with a new school year – jitters, excitement, new challenges and opportunities. New students in new classrooms with new teachers.
Soon, the novelty of all these new things will diminish and the school year will take on its familiar rhythms and routines.
As students begin a school year full of new possibilities, it seems an appropriate time to offer our encouragement to the students, teachers, staff, administrators and parents.
In one way, this school year stands apart from previous years.
In November, Mississippi voters will go to the polls to vote on Initiative 42, which will require the Legislature to adequately fund all Mississippi’s K-12 public schools based on the Legislature’s own funding formula, also known as Mississippi Adequate Education Program. The Legislature has met those funding requirements just twice in its 18 years.
The Legislature has offered an alternative ballot measure, called Initiative 42A that many contend is merely a means of confusing the voters.
Will regular Mississippians demand schools be adequately funded? That issue lies in the voters’ hands
Money, as it has often been said, won’t solve all the problems the state’s school system faces, but it will remove many of the barriers as our children compete with children of other states in an increasingly competitive world.
It is true our children need tools that only adequate funding can provide. But of no less important to a child’s educational success is something that requires no popular vote to attain — the support, encouragement and involvement of parents committed to their children’s education.
Even when resources are limited, every child can succeed if there is a parent at home, who is invested in that child’s progress. Teachers have no greater ally than a parent who is there to make sure that child does his or her homework and arrives at school on time and ready to learn.
The best students are not always the brightest. Often, the best students are those for whom the lessons they learn at school are reinforced at home by supportive parents.
Now, as the routines that shape the school year are being formed, we encourage every parent to make engaging with the child, monitoring his or her progress, holding the child accountable for his or assignments part of the routine as well.
Beyond that, join your school’s PTA, participate in school activities with your child and make it a point to stay in communication with your child’s teachers. We have yet to meet a good teacher who does not welcome that sort of collaboration.
A new school year has begun.
Let’s make it the best one ever.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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