A new and exciting era is about to dawn on the Youngstown City Schools. In a little more than one month, the urban school system that once boasted 24,000 students and six traditional high schools will be reduced to just one unified high school.

Considering the district has witnessed a nearly six-fold decline in enrollment over the past five decades to about 4,500 students today, the major merger decision made 14 months ago makes eminently good sense on both academic and financial fronts. Nonetheless, this approaching consolidation brings with it a fair share of gnawing challenges.

In the interests of academic enhancement for students and fiscal responsibility for district taxpayers, school leaders and staff from the superintendent on down must commit themselves to finishing the job in conquering those challenges head-on.

As it enters the home stretch of planning for the reconfiguration, encouraging signs emerge that the district is on a path to a relatively smooth transition. Nonetheless, some in the city have expressed legitimate concerns over the merger that school officials cannot afford to simply shrug off. Prime among them are transportation, staffing and security.

As for student busing, some drivers have expressed skepticism and worries over the outsourcing of that service to Cincinnati-based Petermann Bus. We applauded that move recently for its positive impact in both saving the financially-strapped district about $3 million annually and for its ability to transport many high schoolers who previously had been unserved and had to rely on the Western Reserve Transit Authority for rides to school.

Yet school leaders should keep a close eye from Day One on the operating efficiencies of the new service and respond openly and respectfully to drivers’ legitimate concerns over healthcare, retirement and other issues as they are transferred to Petermann’s payroll.

Ensuring a full and competent teaching staff must also rise as a priority for the district on the eve of the consolidation. Last month, school board members learned of a shortage of about 40 instructors for the new school year. Filling those critical slots must proceed quickly but responsibly with thorough background checks on candidates’ credentials. A strong, intelligent and engaging teaching staff, after all, rises as a primary cog for the reorganization plan to live up to one of its paramount promises, namely increasing academic offerings and enhancing student achievement in a district that continues to fare poorly on state report cards.

Perhaps the biggest challenge, however, lies in the district’s ability to minimize tensions, drama and misbehavior once the heretofore archrival Chaney High Cowboys and East High Golden Bars blend into one sole identity as Youngstown High Defenders.

To its credit, the district has invested about $3 million into renovations of the former East High School with much of that funding targeted squarely and rightly on beefed-up security for students and staff. Among the improvements are a manned gatehouse entryway with an enclosed lobby, redesigned sightlines from office spaces, a student card access system, perimeter fencing and enhanced monitoring via a dedicated School Resource Officer.

What’s more the Student Ambassadors program, composed of highly motivated former Chaney and East students, has worked aggressively and successfully all year in building new school pride, offering peer mentorship and advocating courteous and nonviolent behavior among all students.

Parents, too, share responsibility in instilling into their teenage children the need to enter the much more crowded hallways of Youngstown High School with attitudes adjusted toward healing all previous bitter rivalries while welcoming and interacting positively with their new and expanded set of peers.

Toward those ends, Youngstown High School’s mascot, an owl, serves as a most fitting metaphor for the launch of the merger. It boldly embodies the inquisitiveness, the resilience and the ability to rise above all adversity that will be so needed to make this major downsizing of the school district an unqualified success.