Let’s pull together for the Class of ’31

Anew generation of children, the high school Class of 2031, is moving into public school systems as the 2018-19 school year gets under way in our communities.

We owe them — and all of our public school students — the opportunity to get a solid education, the key to future success.

It is a daunting responsibility and a particularly challenging one in Connecticut’s cities, where financial stresses increasingly push school administrators into no-win decisions.

School systems have, in some cases, reduced the number of administrators, reorganized transportation plans to consider fewer buses and make more students get to school on their own.

They have cut the number of teachers and, in a few instances, reduced the number of schools. Teacher aides, reading and math specialists and any number of other ancillary support positions also are disappearing.

While school officials keep paring away at costs, some are out of their control, salaries and health benefits among them.

Yet most school officials, at least in recent interviews with Hearst Connecticut Media, were upbeat about prospects for the coming year.

It is, of course, one of the blessings that educators, the people we charge with teaching, supervising, protecting and serving as role models for our children, are a largely positive, glass-half-full bunch.

On the notion of protecting, as we’ve said in these pages before, teachers carrying guns is not the answer to safer schools, regardless of support for that idea at the highest levels of the federal government.

Teachers are in our schools to teach. And with shrinking resources, their plates are already full.

One of the major challenges facing many school districts is their dependence on state aid and ever-increasing uncertainty about how reliable it will be — and when they might know for sure how much and when it is coming.

There doesn’t seem to be much disagreement that the state policy for funding public schools leaves a lot to be desired.

The Connecticut state legislature has a lot on its agenda, to be sure, but it would seem that straightening out the Education Cost Sharing formula, the one used to determine how much state help goes to a community, has to be a top priority.

A gubernatorial election approaches. Voters should closely examine the positions on education funding of Democrat Ned Lamont, Republican Bob Stefanowski and petition candidate Oz Greibel.

Those positions will have longlasting effect on the state of education not only in Connecticut, but in all 169 communities in the state.

On a more mundane note, it’s worth reminding that traffic patterns will change dramatically in the morning and afternoon, as yellow school buses ply the streets, stopping frequently at the spots where children cluster for the ride to school.

We all need to be more alert on our morning and afternoon drives until the reality of the new school year settles in.

So, here’s to the high school class of 2031. May the path be a rewarding one.

It is, of course, one of the blessings that educators, the people we charge with teaching, supervising, protecting and serving as role models for our children, are a largely positive, glass-half-full bunch.