Good Luck to New Gulf Shores City Schools and Baldwin County Schools

Today, nearly 2,500 students head back to school in Gulf Shore’s new school district- new shoes, new uniforms, newly refurbished buildings. After a contentious year of back and forth, divorce-like proceedings between Baldwin County Schools and the newly minted Gulf Shores City Schools, doors will be flung open and classes will begin.
Over the last few weeks as Gulf Shores community members completed construction projects, re-decorated and relabeled every aspect of the now-city school, you could practically pluck the excitement from the air and bottle it. The teachers, the students, the parents are in this together and ready to go.
Next Wednesday, another 31,000 students across Baldwin County will load onto bright yellow school buses and head to their respective schools in the county school system. The teachers and staff who greet them have spent the summer attending seminars, researching and re-arranging classrooms and lesson plans for the ever-expanding communities that continue to fill Alabama’s fastest growing county.
This is no small task.
For every added classroom, soon after, four more are needed. For every dollar budget increase, soon after, hundreds more are needed.

But in each Baldwin community, the teachers, administrators and parents embrace their schools, foster them, support them and love them.
In Orange Beach, excitement has reached a fever pitch as the new middle school and high school near completion. In Daphne, families drive by the site of the new Belforest Elementary School every day to check on its progress.
Baldwin County is growing, and with it the support for our youngest residents as the expanding schools systems attest.
School system differences as Gulf Shores moved towards independence have now been put aside by both sides while progress and success are unfolding in all of the schools in Baldwin County.
Today is a great day as we all move forward together securing a bright future for our children. We wish Gulf Shores City Schools well as we do all the schools in Baldwin County.

This editorial represents the collective opinion of the Gulf Coast Media Editorial Board, composed of editors and staff of the Gulf Coast Media family of newspapers.