Defeat of school issues unfortunate, disturbing

How do you explain the defeat of two school levy renewals in a district that is one of the better academic performers in the region? You don't. You simply chalk it up to voters in the Jackson-Milton School District having a bad day and hope that more thought goes into their decision-making when the issues are placed on the ballot again.
In Tuesday's general election, the Jackson-Milton schools were punished for their improving report card. That's wrong. As Superintendent Buck Palmer noted after the final but unofficial results were announced, "There are a lot of good things going on here that many people are not aware of. Our report card scores will have gone up over 25 percent this year. Things are going in a positive direction and we will not let this derail us."
Palmer is right: Now isn't the time to place the school district in a financial straitjacket. Voters need to take a long, hard look at what is going on in the Jackson-Milton schools and what will happen to the push for academic excellence if they again refuse to renew the 7.3-mill and 0.9-mill levies.
Meanwhile in the Poland and Boardman school districts, voters said no to additional levies even though officials had warned that the money was needed to fend off fiscal crises. It didn't seem to matter that Boardman and Poland are two of the academic giants in the Valley and that the money is needed to maintain the level of superiority that has been achieved.
It must be discouraging for the administration, faculty and pupils to know that too many people don't seem to care about excellence in education.
Unyielding support
We have been criticized by some area residents for our unyielding support for school levies, but we make no apologies for this position. As we pointed out in an editorial before Tuesday's election, until the state of Ohio comes up with a better, fairer way of funding public primary and secondary schools, property taxes will remain the main source of revenue for most districts. That's especially true for districts that have comparatively higher property values. They get shortchanged by the state formula used to determine the amount of money that comes from Columbus.
That is why Boardman, Poland and Canfield all went to the voters this week and asked for relatively small increases in property taxes. Canfield was fortunate in that the district's residents approved a 6.9-mill, five-year levy, but officials in Boardman and Poland must come to grips with rejection.
On Monday, the Poland Board of Education is expected to meet in special session to declare a fiscal emergency. That's because the district is expected to have a $226,113 budget shortfall by the end of this school year. State officials will come in to assist the district in developing a financial recovery plan. The 3.9-mill, five-year levy lost by 54 votes.
In Boardman, a 5.9-mill, five-year request failed by 370 votes. That means an expected $1.1 million shortfall by the end of 2003-04 will become a reality unless additional revenue is secured.
We are hard-pressed to explain how the voters can ignore the academic successes of these districts, but we hope that they will consider the price the region will pay if our top schools begin to falter.