There comes a point for many of us when the school calendar no longer dictates our lives.

There are no permission slips on the kitchen counter, no frantic searches for a missing shoe five minutes before school, no parent-teacher conferences or backpacks dumped by the front door. Our children grow up, graduate and begin lives of their own.

It would be easy, then, to think public education is no longer our concern.

But I believe that is exactly when we need to remember something important: Public schools were never meant to serve only the families who currently have children sitting in classrooms. They serve all of us. I was reminded of that as I visited many of the schools this week in preparation for doing a series on area principals, and I felt compelled to remind others.

A strong school system is one of the foundations of a strong community.

Those students walking through our school doors today will someday be our nurses, teachers, mechanics, business owners, firefighters, police officers, farmers, engineers and community leaders. They will buy homes, raise families, volunteer, coach Little League teams and sit on local boards.

Whether we have a child in school today or haven’t for 20 years, we all have a stake in how well they are prepared for that future.

And preparing them isn’t getting any easier.

Today’s students are growing up in a world dramatically different from the one many of us knew — and even different from the one our own children experienced.

They carry the internet in their pockets. Social media can make popularity, bullying, rumors and embarrassment a 24-hour-a-day experience. They are learning how to distinguish reliable information from misinformation while artificial intelligence is changing how they study, communicate and eventually work.

Schools are asked to prepare students for careers that are evolving almost as quickly as technology itself.

At the same time, they’re asked to fit in the normal reading, math, science and history, but then they’re expected to recognize when a child is struggling emotionally.

I don’t know about many of you, but when I was in school, our emotional needs were not the responsibility of our teachers. Imagine that extra demand being placed on their shoulders – and for something so critically important.

Every day, I’m sure they go home feeling defeated and exhausted. And every morning, they start again.

None of this means previous generations had it easy. Every generation of students and educators faces its own set of challenges. But today’s challenges are different, and pretending schools should operate exactly as they did 30 or 40 years ago ignores how much the world around them has changed.

That is one reason community support matters so much.

Now don’t misunderstand, supporting public education doesn’t mean believing every decision made by a school district is right. It doesn’t mean we can’t ask questions, expect accountability or disagree with administrators or school boards.

In fact, we should pay attention. These are our community’s schools. We have to pay attention. We have to ask questions. We have to care.

But there is a difference between holding schools accountable and deciding they no longer deserve our investment simply because our own children have graduated.

Someone helped pay for the school our children attended. Someone helped pay for the school we attended.

Someone without a child in their classroom helped provide their textbooks, heat their building, pay their teachers and keep the buses running. Generations before us invested in schools knowing they might never personally receive a direct benefit.

Our children benefited anyway.

Now it is our turn.

It’s easy to say education doesn’t impact us. But it does. The quality of the school system helps shape the future of the entire town. Families considering where to live look at schools. Businesses considering where to invest need an educated workforce. Young families deciding whether to stay need to believe their children can receive a quality education.

When schools struggle, eventually communities struggle with them.

When schools thrive, their success reaches far beyond the classroom.

Supporting education can take many forms. Attend a school concert, a game, volunteer, or maybe just simply recognize the people doing difficult work inside our schools. The students and teachers need our support. It’s critical to the future of our community.

But it also means being willing to invest in education because we understand that some things are worth supporting even when the benefit isn’t immediately or personally ours.

Maybe that is the real test of a community.

It is easy to care about a school when it’s our child walking in those doors.

It takes a broader sense of community to care just as much when it’s someone else’s.

My children may no longer need our public schools.

But my community does.

And someday, when today’s students are the adults running our businesses, caring for us in hospitals, teaching a new generation and making decisions about the future of the places we call home, I don’t think any of us will regret that we believed their education was worth investing in.

Because supporting public education isn’t only about supporting today’s children.

It’s about believing in tomorrow’s community.

Yvonda Freeman writes for the Great Bend Tribune. Send email to yfreeman@gbtribune.com.