EDITORIAL:

The bell has rung again at local campuses, with students saying goodbye to another summer and hello to the classroom.

It’s a time for making new friends, discovering new subjects and perhaps most importantly, discovering oneself.

At every level, whether elementary, middle or high school, the school scene is one big social study, and our teachers and administrators continue to do a great job keeping the schools safe and healthy.

This is an ethnically diverse area that sees its share of racial tension.

Schools are the best potential breeding ground for equality, where kids from different backgrounds can find out on the playground that they really aren’t that different from one another.

Once they ace that social study, the social studies in their textbooks might mean a lot more, and be quite a bit more constructive.

And according to recent figures, local students did a great job grasping social studies, along with English, math and science.

In this new era of quantifying learning beyond A’s, Bs and Cs, our students keep improving their scores.

With state budget cuts continuing to be an annual issue — and the current year always seems to be a little worse than the last — it’s a wonder how our kids keep doing it, but they do (Thanks, teachers and parents).

So enough of the serious stuff.

We hope everyone’s summer went well, and that everyone regardless of their age is waking up every morning looking to learn something new.

Whether it’s a kindergartner learning to read, a fourth-grader learning about the San Gabriel Mission, an eighth-grader learning algebra, a 12th-grader learning that Shakespeare actually does make sense or a second-year GCC student learning where they want to transfer and what they want to study, this is the time of year to start.

Keep those goals lofty, and don’t let a bad grade get you down. If you’re learning, you’ll always be ready for the next test.

Happy new school year.