The start of the school year is less than two weeks away for students in Oxford and Lafayette County.

Classes at Lafayette begin on Friday, Aug. 5, while Oxford starts on Monday, Aug. 8. Teachers go back days before that to get classrooms and plans ready, which means summer is almost over.

The temperatures are still hot and families are still on summer vacations but before you know it the time has come for families to embrace school supplies, backpacks and rigid daily routines.

We are blessed to have such wonderful schools systems at Oxford and Lafayette, led by leaders and teachers who want to make a difference and do. Our biggest challenges are simply that the schools are so good here that more students want in each year, pushing our infrastructure to the limits.

But demand resulting from excellence is the type of problem we want in greater Oxford. It means, though, that our planning must reach well beyond the upcoming start of the school year.

We must continue looking farther into the future than other systems typically do, anticipating the needs that will come so that our students will be effectively served long into the future.