There is an old expression: “A penny for your thoughts.”
Perhaps we need a new one.
For generations, the penny has been one of those small, familiar objects that Americans rarely stopped to think about. It collected in jars, disappeared beneath couch cushions, filled cup holders and was handed to children learning how to count money. We picked one up from the sidewalk, dropped one into a change jar or occasionally left one beside a cash register for the next person who needed it.
The penny seemed permanent.
But in 2025, the United States Mint struck the final penny produced for general circulation, bringing an end to more than two centuries of continuous penny production. The reason was largely economic. It had become more expensive to manufacture a penny than the coin was actually worth.
Existing pennies are not suddenly worthless. Billions remain in circulation and continue to be legal tender. What has changed is that the country is no longer producing new ones for everyday circulation.
So much for giving someone your two cents.
The story of the penny seems like a small change. In fact, it is literally the smallest change we have.
But perhaps it is also a fitting reminder of something much larger. Things we assume will always be part of our lives sometimes change.
Consider a senior beginning the 2026-2027 school year at Rossville Schools.
That student began this journey approximately 13 years ago, probably carrying a backpack that looked too large, a new box of crayons and perhaps a lunchbox carefully selected for the first day of school. Somewhere, there is likely a photograph of that kindergartner standing outside the school or front door while a parent tried to capture the moment.
Now place that photograph beside the senior walking into school today.
The student has obviously changed.
But so has the world.
And so has school.
As I begin my 27th year as Superintendent of Rossville Schools, I find myself thinking more frequently about how much change I have witnessed. Twenty-seven years represents more than two complete journeys from kindergarten through graduation.
Sometimes change occurs so gradually that we barely notice it. Other times it happens almost overnight.
Today’s seniors entered kindergarten around 2013 or 2014. Smartphones existed. Social media existed. Schools had computers, interactive boards and online resources.
But artificial intelligence was certainly not something the average kindergarten teacher expected students to use while completing an assignment.
A Chromebook was not necessarily as essential to a student’s school day as a pencil.
Video meetings were something adults occasionally used for business, not something elementary students knew how to join from their kitchen tables.
Few people could have imagined that these kindergarten students would eventually experience a worldwide pandemic that temporarily moved classrooms from school buildings into homes.
Yet they did.
Today’s seniors experienced something few previous generations could have imagined. They remember school before COVID-19, lived through remote learning and returned to classrooms in an educational environment permanently changed by the experience.
The dining room table became a classroom. Teachers appeared on computer screens. Parents became even more directly involved in managing the school day. Assignments, textbooks, meetings and conversations became increasingly digital.
Many of those changes remained after students returned to school.
There was once a destination in schools called “the computer lab.”
Students went there to use technology.
Today, technology goes with the student.
Rossville Schools maintains a 1:1 Chromebook-to-student ratio, and classrooms use interactive technology, educational software, and digital resources throughout instruction.
But perhaps the biggest change is not the equipment. It is what we expect students to do with information.
Students once searched for an encyclopedia.
Then they learned to search Google.
Now they can ask artificial intelligence to explain a difficult concept, summarize information, translate languages, analyze data, generate ideas or help write computer code.
For generations, one of education’s primary responsibilities was helping students find information.
Today, information is everywhere.
Our challenge is increasingly teaching students how to determine whether that information is accurate, reliable, ethical and useful.
Finding an answer is no longer enough.
Students must know how to question the answer.
Interestingly, after spending years putting more technology into students’ hands, schools are now asking when students should put technology down.
Educators are examining screen time, cellphone use, social media, artificial intelligence and the appropriate balance between digital and traditional learning.
That does not mean technology has failed. It means we are learning to use it more thoughtfully.
A Chromebook is a tool. A calculator is a tool. A textbook is a tool. A pencil is a tool. Artificial intelligence is a tool.
Sometimes the best instructional technology available is still a teacher sitting beside a student and asking, “Show me how you got that answer.”
The changes extend well beyond academics.
School safety looks very different than it did when I began as superintendent.
Visitor management, emergency communications, cameras, cybersecurity, student identification, reunification procedures, threat assessment and partnerships with law enforcement and emergency responders have all become increasingly important.
Technology helps us make schools safer, but technology alone cannot create a safe school.
A camera cannot know a child the way a teacher can.
Software cannot replace a trusted adult noticing that something is wrong.
A locked door cannot create a sense of belonging.
The safest schools are ultimately places where students are known, relationships are strong, adults communicate and people pay attention to one another.
Some things should never change.
The opportunities available to students have also expanded.
Today’s high school students can complete college coursework, earn certifications, explore careers and participate in experiences that connect high school directly to college, technical education, military service or the workforce.
The question has gradually shifted from simply asking, “Are you going to college?” to asking something much more important:
“What do you want to do next, and what can we do now to prepare you for it?”
With all this discussion about change, however, spend a few minutes watching our youngest students.
A kindergartner still wants to know where to put the backpack.
A child still wonders whether he or she will make a friend.
Students still get excited about recess.
They still lose pencils.
They still want someone to notice when they do something well.
Despite every technological advancement we have made, one of the most powerful sentences in education remains remarkably low-tech:
“I believe in you.”
There is no app for that.
Perhaps that is what makes the beginning of a senior year so meaningful.
We know how much has changed since today’s seniors entered kindergarten. What we cannot possibly know is how much will change before today’s kindergartners become seniors.
A kindergartner entering Rossville Schools this year will graduate around 2039.
What will the world look like then?
What careers will exist that have not yet been invented?
What technologies will become commonplace?
Will today’s artificial intelligence seem primitive to the Class of 2039?
What problems will their generation be asked to solve?
No superintendent, teacher, parent or technology company can answer those questions with certainty.
That may be the most important lesson of all.
Education cannot simply prepare children for the world as it exists today. We have to prepare them for a world we cannot yet see.
Reading, mathematics, science and history remain essential. But curiosity matters. Communication matters. Adaptability matters. Character matters. Critical thinking matters. Knowing how to work with others matters.
Perhaps more than ever, knowing how to distinguish knowledge from noise matters.
During my 27 years as superintendent, I have watched technology come and go, programs begin and end, standards change, buildings improve, security evolve and generations of students walk across the graduation stage.
I have also learned that change rarely announces itself as something historic when it first arrives.
The first computer placed in a classroom was simply a new piece of equipment.
The first school website was simply another way to communicate.
The first Chromebook was another instructional tool.
The first virtual class was an alternative way to learn.
Artificial intelligence initially seemed like another technological development.
Years later, we look back and recognize that some of those moments represented fundamental changes in how students learn and how schools operate.
The penny provides a surprisingly good example.
For generations, children learned about money by counting pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. Teachers used coins to teach mathematics. Parents emptied pockets of loose change. Children filled piggy banks and learned that 100 pennies made a dollar.
The penny was so ordinary that few of us imagined America without newly minted ones.
Today’s seniors entered kindergarten when pennies were still rolling off the presses at the United States Mint. They will graduate in a country that has decided it no longer makes economic sense to continue producing them for circulation.
That is quite a change to occur during one student’s school career.
Yet it may seem minor compared with the other changes these students have experienced.
They entered kindergarten in one technological era and will graduate in another. They began school before COVID-19 and will graduate having experienced its lasting effects. They grew up alongside smartphones, social media, Chromebooks, streaming video, digital classrooms and now artificial intelligence.
Think about what that means.
The world did not simply change around these students.
They had to change with it.
They adapted.
And that may be one of the most valuable lessons their education has provided.
The ability to adapt does not mean abandoning the past or accepting every new idea simply because it is new. It means being able to evaluate change, understand it and determine how best to move forward.
That is exactly what schools must do as well.
Technology changes.
Economies change.
Careers change.
Schools change.
Even the penny changes.
But our responsibility to children does not.
A kindergartner walks through our doors carrying an oversized backpack, perhaps holding the hand of a parent who is not quite ready to let go. Over the next 13 years, that child learns to read, calculate, question, create, compete, cooperate, fail, recover, lead and dream.
Then, almost before anyone is ready, that same student puts on a cap and gown.
The backpack is gone.
The crayons are long forgotten.
The parent is taking another photograph.
Only this time, instead of wondering whether their child is ready for kindergarten, they are wondering how 13 years passed so quickly.
The world that a graduate enters will not be the same world that welcomed that kindergartner.
It never is.
Our job is not to stop that change.
Our job is to make sure our students are ready for it.
A penny for your thoughts?
We may eventually have to retire the expression along with the coin itself.
But after watching 27 years of change in public education, I would argue that the ability to think remains one of the most valuable things we can give a student.
Thoughtful, curious, adaptable, and well-educated young people will always be worth considerably more than two cents.