We hear so many stories about bad education, poor teachers, the failures of our school system that it is heartening to hear from Ryan Sheehan who, in last week’s Cabinet, praised Milford’s alternative high school, the Sage School.

Sage, said Sheehan, now 23, “helped me have a better life.”

The alternative school was established to educate students in grades 6-12 who are considered high risk or have a serious emotional disability. If Sheehan’s case is typical, Sage is a great success. The former student will enter the Navy in a few months and get married at the end of the year.

We profiled him because he was recently wielding a paint brush in Bales School, which houses Sage, helping to spruce up the school gym, his way of saying thanks. He was volunteering with fellow employees from Amherst’s College Bound Movers, but for him, it was personal, too, his way of paying a debt to Sage.

His thanks to the school earns our thanks. It’s an example to the rest of us to remember the folks, including (perhaps especially) teachers who helped us find our way.