The first bell of the 2009-2010 academic year for the Vicksburg Warren School District rings Tuesday (and yes, that’s this Tuesday), so here are some facts to ponder:

• During the year, the district will spend about $78 million on behalf of about 9,000 students. That’s $8,700 per pupil, which compares favorably with a national average of about $9,400 and a Mississippi average of about $7,400.

• The total doesn’t include the first year of a federal grant targeted to safer, healthier schools. It amounts to $1.5 million, the largest anywhere in America this year.

• The district’s 14 schools are in good shape, thanks to ongoing capital improvement and maintenance programs. Even older schools have air-conditioning, fresh paint and are bright and clean inside and out.

• The district has the latest in textbooks, computers and software for teachers and students, an integrated, Internet-connected system.

• Teachers in the district are award winners across a spectrum of achievement. Our weekly School/Youth section documents their innovative approaches to instruction and recognitions they receive. A larger proportion than in many other districts are also National Board Certified Teachers, having completed a regimen that gauges and affirms their classroom effectiveness.

• A bevy of after-school programs, public and private, offer abundant tutoring and mentoring programs. Indeed, a Vicksburg parent, the Rev. Troy Truly, was the Mississippi Board of Education’s Parent of the Year this year.

Now, with all that it would seem success for all our young people would be, as they say, a lock.

And it could be.

But it won’t be.

Perhaps not in our School/Youth section, but in the months to come we’ll have stories about young people who have made poor choices. They’ll become society’s next round of takers instead of givers.

There’s nothing abnormal about this. It’s a fact of life that even when given what seems to be every reasonable opportunity there will be those who eschew personal responsibility. And that includes parents who blame teachers and schools first, without even considering that students fail schools far more often than schools fail students.

We hope it’s a good year. For that to be true, however, those who have worked diligently to set the stage for success must not be distracted by those who don’t share that agenda. All the fixed assets are in place. Attitudes are the only variable.