It’s an annual event as momentous as Thanksgiving, and it comes to Cortez this week: the annual migration of students back to classrooms. It changes the landscape of a community; suddenly the streets and parks are empty of children. It causes a blip in the economy, as spending patterns change to accommodate back-to-school clothes and school supplies. Jokes abound about how glad parents are to see the first day of school roll around again.

All that is indisputable, but those details obscure a more important point we often take for granted: We have a public school system that offers all children an adequate education, at a cost that taxpayers can bear. Many of us have only a vague idea how it’s funded, with property tax and equalization money flowing in and out. The fact that we don’t pay close attention to how it works suggests that it does work, well enough that we trust the system to provide for our children.

It’s not very popular right now to say that children should be raised by the "village," but an entire community has responsibility for educating its young people. The benefits of doing so — of raising generations who can take over our responsibilities — are obvious. The costs of not doing so are sometimes more subtle: high numbers of people dependent on assistance programs, adults who are not functionally literate and so cannot effectively participate in the economy, higher crime, less sense of community. Property taxes in Montezuma County are very affordable, compared to most places. The portion spent on education is well spent indeed.

One reason our schools function as well as they do is the willingness of parents and other adults to volunteer their time and expertise. Parental involvement is essential, and there’s ample evidence that students whose parents pay close attention to their schoolwork are more likely to succeed. Children who can find relevance in their classwork, who can connect what they’re studying to what they’ll need to know to live and work here, are more likely to want to learn, and the local community can help them make that connection.