Our children are heading back to school, and it is an excellent time to appreciate our local schools, and to consider how we can make education in Lycoming County better.

As we have noted before, we are fortunate to have eight good school districts in our county, and a good Catholic school system in St. John Neumann Regional Academy as well. Our rural county affords every family that chooses to live here and make their lives here an opportunity to choose the school district or school system that best fits their families’ needs. Many states that tie the governance of their schools to their counties or other, larger geographic areas do not afford families that degree of choice.

We recognize that a variety of contentious issues in recent years have made governing our school districts more acrimonious than years past. While we accept and appreciate how deeply felt all the specific views on some of these matters can be held, we hope parents, community members, administrators and school board members can move forward with greater patience and with a greater appreciation that those who disagree are not obstacles to overcome or, worse yet, enemies to defeat but are their neighbors, who reach their own views out the same desire for our children to be safe, successful and happy to learn about their world and their futures.

While our children will learn much in their classrooms and libraries, they also will learn from our behavior — how we talk to each other and how we treat each other.

Do we want our children to learn to view those who disagree with suspicion and paranoia? Do we want them to learn to shout down other viewpoints, to mock and belittle differences of opinion?

We know our neighbors. We know our communities and we cannot believe that the vast majority of us do.

It is our most fervent hope as another school year begins that we can teach our children to treat others with courtesy at our school board meetings, in the stands at our high school games and in our homes when we discuss these contentious issues — how to ensure the safety of students, what lessons should be taught about our history and our society — and how we discuss our neighbors with whom we disagree.