Back to School: Preparing for a Successful Year

-Editorial

Across California and Baja California, the familiar rhythm of a new school year is returning. Classrooms are filling, backpacks are getting heavier, schedules are changing, and students are once again adjusting to teachers, classmates, homework, and new expectations.

For some children, this is an exciting new beginning. For others, returning to school can bring anxiety, uncertainty, or a feeling that summer ended too quickly. Whether a child is entering elementary school, middle school, high school, or college, the beginning of an academic year is more than a change in schedule. It is an opportunity to establish habits, discover interests, build confidence, and develop the skills that can influence the direction of an entire life.

The goal is balance.

After months of later bedtimes, more screen time, vacations, and unstructured days, families must gradually return to routines that include sleep, nutritious meals, schoolwork, physical activity, responsibilities at home, and meaningful time together. For parents—particularly those managing households largely on their own—this transition can feel overwhelming. But children can also become part of the solution when they are taught that families work as teams.

Teaching children to organize their backpacks, prepare their clothes, complete chores, manage their time, and take responsibility for assignments is not simply about making life easier for parents. It is teaching independence.

Attendance is the first lesson

One of the most important habits families can establish is simply showing up.

California’s latest education data show that the state’s chronic absenteeism rate fell to 19.4% in 2024–25, a substantial improvement from the 30% peak recorded in 2021–22. Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing at least 10% of the instructional days for which a student is enrolled. The average number of days absent statewide also declined to 12.8.

The numbers matter because every missed day can mean missed instruction, missed relationships, and missed opportunities to participate.

For Imperial County families, attendance should therefore be viewed not as a statistic but as an investment in a child’s future. Parents should pay attention not only when a student begins missing many days, but also when a child starts saying, “I don’t want to go.” That can be a signal that something deeper needs attention.

Make learning meaningful

Children are naturally curious. The challenge is protecting that curiosity as academic demands increase.

Research from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences has found that strong developmental relationships between teachers and students are associated with greater school connection, stronger academic motivation, and better grades. Researchers also found that these relationships can weaken during the school year unless schools intentionally work to strengthen them.

That means parents should ask more than, “Did you do your homework?”

Ask: What did you learn today? What surprised you? What was difficult? What are you curious about?

Those questions communicate that education is not merely about grades. It is about discovery.

Students also benefit when they feel that they belong. A meta-analysis of 82 studies found that school belonging was positively associated with motivation, self-efficacy, and engagement, while also showing a small negative relationship with absence and dropout.

Parents can encourage that connection by helping children find something they enjoy—sports, music, art, robotics, theater, student government, community service, cultural activities, or academic clubs. Participation gives students another reason to feel that school is their community.

Teach resilience, not perfection

One of the greatest mistakes adults can make is teaching children that success means never failing.

Children need to understand that struggling with mathematics does not mean they are “bad at math.” Receiving a disappointing grade does not define their intelligence. Losing a competition does not define their potential.

Teach them to say: “I don’t understand this yet.”

That little word—yet—can change the way a child sees a challenge.

Resilience grows when children learn perseverance, accountability, patience, and the courage to ask for help. They also need to learn that asking for help is a strength, not a weakness.

At the same time, resilience should never be confused with doing everything alone. Strong children know how to seek support from parents, teachers, counselors, coaches, relatives, and trusted adults.

The values that matter beyond the classroom

Academic achievement is important, but education should produce more than high test scores.

Teach children integrity, so they do the right thing even when nobody is watching.

Teach them discipline, so they understand that goals require consistent effort.

Teach them responsibility, so they understand that their choices affect others.

Teach them empathy, so success does not make them indifferent to someone else’s struggle.

Teach them respect, including respect for people whose backgrounds, cultures, languages or perspectives differ from their own.

Teach them gratitude, kindness, curiosity, courage, humility and service.

And perhaps most importantly, teach them that their education is not only for themselves.

The world needs educated people who can solve problems, create businesses, discover medicines, build communities and develop technology—but it also needs people who care about what happens to their neighbors and to future generations.

California’s 2025 School Dashboard reported an 87.5% graduation rate, its highest since the Dashboard launched in 2017, while 51.7% of graduates were classified as prepared for college and career. Those numbers represent progress, but they also remind us that graduation is not the finish line. It is preparation for what comes next.

Parents don’t have to do everything

A successful school year does not require perfect parents, perfect schedules or perfect students.

It requires consistency.

Set reasonable bedtime and technology routines. Establish a quiet place and regular time for schoolwork. Keep communication open with teachers. Watch for changes in behavior. Celebrate effort, not only achievement. Read together when possible. Encourage questions. Let children solve age-appropriate problems instead of immediately solving everything for them.

And remember to protect family time.

A child who knows that home is a place where they are loved, heard, and supported has an important foundation from which to face the challenges of school and life.

For families throughout Imperial County, this new school year can be an opportunity to think beyond report cards and graduation requirements. We can ask a bigger question: What kind of human being are we helping our children become?

The best outcome of education should not simply be a successful career. It should be a person who knows how to think, how to learn, how to overcome adversity and how to use knowledge with compassion.

Because ultimately, education is not only about preparing children to make a living.

It is about preparing them to make a life—and to make the world a little better because they were here.

This school year, let us give our children more than supplies, schedules, and homework.

Let us give them confidence.

Let us give them responsibility.

Let us give them curiosity.

Let us give them resilience.

And above all, let us give them the values that will remain with them long after the last school bell rings.