Back-to-school season has begun, and with it are a number of “firsts.”

One Alabama county opened its first integrated school this week, almost 50 years after the state was ordered to desegregate by federal courts. Of the more than 300 students at University Charter School in Livingston, more than half are black. Only 24 percent of Sumter County’s residents are white, but just under half of the students in the school are. That racial balance is an accomplishment, considering that white flight has thwarted past desegregation efforts in the area. "This is an historic day and an historic mission," principal John Cameron said on Monday. The Monitor is keeping track of other approaches to integration in its Learning Together series. 

Unlike in Alabama, where parents hope the new school will bring the community together, some parents in Puerto Rico – where school also started this week – are concerned about a plan to use charter schools there having the opposite effect.

The US territory’s first charter school will open on Monday in San Juan, after a court battle over constitutionality was recently resolved. One parent, from the central mountainous town of Guaynabo, spoke with Monitor correspondent Whitney Eulich in March. Evelyn Ortiz explained how the school her special-needs daughter attended before it closed was the “heart” of the community. Will a charter prioritize local unity and needs, educators and parents wonder?

Charter schools are a tinderbox issue, perhaps more so now with the current administration pushing for more parent choice. These two examples offer fodder for the debate – for while charters may prove to be the answer to more equity in Alabama, they may not in Puerto Rico.

Now to our five stories for Thursday.