It’s the kindling that ignites the year in Lawrence, perhaps as nowhere else. It’s an exciting time that invigorates the town and brings to students, teachers and school personnel each year a new opportunity, a fresh start.

Youngsters in elementary classrooms meet new teachers, see who their classmates are, make new friends and renew old friendships. They get to open that first box of brand-new crayons, sharpen those first pencils, encounter exciting learning technology, look through new textbooks, and learn the school rules. It’s a time for thinking about all the extracurricular opportunities and fun things to work on with classmates, eager to learn. For teachers, it has been a time of planning and organizing the opening of classrooms, getting those bulletin boards ready, thinking about students and new ideas for teaching, greeting colleagues and sharing with them. Every year is a new year, and any problems of prior years are put in the past. It’s a time for thinking about new and effective ways to work with all students and parents, knowing this community supports its teachers and schools.

On Mount Oread, sorority rush has begun, football is in the air, basketball is around the corner. Touchdowns, baskets and personal goals, GPAs and SATs are woven together in the fabric of student and faculty life as another cycle of semesters begins.

Along Massachusetts Street and throughout the business community, the economic engine of the city has kicked into another gear.

Soon the seasons will begin to change and we’ll wonder how the summer days have passed so quickly. But for now, it’s a great time, a new beginning, a fresh start. Let’s enjoy it and resolve to make it the best ever.