Whoever said there can be too much of a good thing could not have been talking about schools.

Every child deserves to go to an excellent school. The U.S. News & World Report rankings factor in whether historically underserved students — minority and low-income students — at a school outperform the state average.

Beyond this particular set of rankings, how a school performs depends on so many factors.

A district’s school board may factor into the equation: Is it supportive of the educational mission? Is it willing to invest in innovative teaching methods and good facilities?

And certainly, administrators play a role. Penn Manor Superintendent Mike Leichliter is highly respected in Lancaster County, and clearly has steered his district well.

But teachers — they are key. ...

... And this goes for teachers at all of Lancaster County’s schools.

We could not do what you do.

Most people couldn’t.

It may look like a cakewalk in June, when schools close for the summer. But we realize that many of you will be using the summer months to further your education, write curricula, create bulletin boards, scour garage sales for books and supplies — which you’ll pay for with your own money — and plan classroom projects.

We also know it’s anything but a cakewalk when you’re standing in front of 24 sleep-deprived, snarky, unimpressed teenagers, and you need to not only engage their interest, but adapt what you’re teaching to their varying abilities. (You must do all of that while needing to use the restroom, and your next opportunity to do so is a couple of hours in the future.)

It’s not easy, either, when you’re a special education teacher and the students in your learning support classroom are expected to ace the same tests as the students in the gifted classroom a few doors down. Or when you’re a teacher of the gifted who must strike a balance between challenging your students and keeping them from being crushed by the weight of the expectations placed on them. Or when a student has behavioral or emotional issues and wreaks havoc in your classroom.

Teaching seems easy to a lot of us because we all went to school and our teachers made it look easy. That was part of their job; complaining to students about late nights grading essays or early mornings on bus duty is generally frowned upon.

Teachers aren’t going to tell you about the nights they spend worrying about the student who is depressed and possibly suicidal, or the student whose family just had to move into a low-cost motel, or the student for whom they just quietly purchased sneakers to prevent any gym-day humiliation.

But these are the sorts of worries teachers carry, as they go about the business of educating students.

Public school teachers here are generally paid well: The average teacher’s salary in Lancaster County is more than $60,000, though starting salaries tend to be in the $46,000-$50,000 range. Like other professionals, teachers are compensated for their experience and academic degrees. (But unlike the workday of other professionals, there is no downtime in a teaching day.)

Every excellent school, and every school that’s striving toward excellence, depends on excellent and caring teachers. They’re essential. And we thank them for their dedication.