The Vicksburg Warren School District is embarking on a program to transform the high school experience for its students.

Doing so may seem a risky pursuit. However, not making the transformation in reality offers much more risk for our community.

Our world has changed drastically in the last 20 years or so. Education must change with it.

While we may have had only a job or two during our work years, students graduating high school today can expect to have 10 or more jobs during their lifetimes.

Demands and skills needed in the workforce are drastically different than they were just a few years ago.

And students are different, too. Thanks to technology changes, students seek immediate answers and ask questions we perhaps never thought to ask, like why do I need to know this.

In short, high school students want to know the things they are learning are those they will need later in life, or their already-shortened attention span becomes even shorter.

School district officials who were already looking at ways to make education for high school students more engaging, more career-oriented, came upon the Ford Next Generation Learning Initiative, and to say they were impressed is an understatement.

School officials traveled to Nashville and witnessed how that city’s public school system has been reborn, with a vastly improved graduation rate and a workforce that is growing because it now has a steady stream of work-ready employee.

That can happen in Vicksburg. Ford Next Generation Learning seeks to work with the business community here to find out exactly its needs for workers now and in the future.

Then, coursework is tailored to produce the kinds of employees our area needs. They do that through partnerships with businesses, area community colleges and universities and others in the community.

And community is the key. Like the Leader in Me program, the Vicksburg-Warren Chamber of Commerce has taken on the task of raising funds to pay for the Ford Next Generation Learning program.

We’ll have to dig deep, but we’re convinced it’s an investment that will make our high school students more employable and will, indeed, lead to increased economic development here because of a more skilled labor force.

When the chamber comes calling on you, please dig deep. It’s the future of our community you will be supporting.