Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire.

&045; W. B. Yeats

How will our school system respond to the ever increasing strains of serving a booming county?

How can our school system work with parents and teachers to make certain every child in every classroom receives our best effort to make them successful in the classroom and in life?

How can funding be secured to build the numerous classrooms and new facilities so desperately needed by our school system?

How can our school system insure that a teacher&8217;s focus stays trained on teaching children rather than teaching tests required by the no child left behind act?

How can our school system be lead to even greater achievement and higher rankings when measured against other school systems in our state and the southeast?

How can our school system respond appropriately to the increasing diversity of students and their native languages?

How can our school system attract and retain the best and brightest teachers to educate our children?

These are just a handful of some very difficult questions to be answered by the Shelby County School System&8217;s next School Superintendent.

And the decision of who will help craft our responses to these difficult questions lies with you. Yes, you have a voice in the direction of our school system as you cast a ballot in the Tuesday July 18th Primary Runoff.

No question other important races will be decided by you on Tuesday but the single most important decision you will make at the polling place will be who will lead our schools for the next four years.

Your decision will not only impact our schools and our children during the term of the new school superintendent but will have far reaching ramifications in the years and decades to come. Missteps now have tremendous ripple effects down the road.

Getting beyond the fact that our next superintendent will have some very big shoes to fill in following Evan Major into the office will also be no easy task for the new superintendent; Major has raised the bar as to the efficiency of how our school system is managed and the level of excellence demanded in the classroom.

No question, the next superintendent has his work cut out for him. And so do you in casting your ballot Tuesday. Here&8217;s wishing you and our children the best of luck Tuesday.