If the Salisbury City Council hopes to do more than provide lip service to focusing on public education over the next two years, it must be committed to making additional commitments to schools in the city limits.

Speaking after she was sworn in as mayor, Karen Alexander gave a short speech saying education would be the broad theme for the council’s next two years. It was a good suggestion. She rightly pointed out that there’s a strong connection between education and economic development. City Council members must be as concerned about the quality of local schools as local educators.

“It is a theme that all of us as a community can get together around because it affects every one of us,” Alexander said.

Councilman David Post made similar comments Tuesday, too.

“We all talked about economic development, but the rubber meets the road with the schools,” Post said. “We are the largest contributor to the tax base in Rowan County. We’re the largest single population base in Rowan County, yet we have no voice in the schools.”

Making education a broad theme, however, cannot simply be about making sure Salisbury has a “voice” in school board decisions. Yes, the council must take a more active role in advocating for Salisbury’s students, but emails, phone calls and meetings with school board members can ensure opinions of City Council members and Salisbury residents are included in future school board decisions, which are sure to include closures and consolidation.

The council must build on its existing commitments to provide funding for principal salaries and science, technology, engineering and math training for teachers. That may be as simple as funding programs at schools in the city limits that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. And any commitment doesn’t need to be recurring. That is, the current council could provide one-time funding and resources for a program in 2020 and look for a new opportunity in 2021.

To be clear, the Salisbury City Council should avoid starting with providing funding for capital projects in the Rowan-Salisbury Schools district; that is and should remain the county commission’s responsibility. And the commission this year promised $75 million to the school board for capital projects. Instead, the council should begin by embracing its ability to boost the quality of Salisbury schools through new program funding.