Educating its children is among a community’s biggest obligations. The reason is simple: It’s the way in which the community grows in the future.

So we’ve followed with great interest the efforts by the Concordia Parish School Board as it pushes the status quo and tries new things such as creation of a magnet school in the parish.

Change can often cause many people stress because most of us are creatures of habit, and we like to do things just as we always have.

Most of us would prefer not to rock the boat — ever.

But change is a needed part of life and for our educational system to be alive and growing with our community, it needs to be flexible and open-minded enough to change things occasionally, too.

Although the parish’s magnet school plans still require jumping through one last hoop — approval from a judge due to an old desegregation order — the prospects look good.

We applaud them for trying something new. None of us will know for certain if such a plan will work or not until someone tries it.

On the east side of the Mississippi River, we hope the Natchez-Adams School District is watching and learning, too. Natchez-Adams has mulled the idea of trying something new for years and years, but we’ve never shifted the car into drive.

Perhaps that will change soon so citizens can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that our community has left no stone unturned in the process of giving area children the best education possible.