In the recent May school board and school budget elections, this newspaper posted the results of who was elected to local school boards and also listed the numbers in the school budget votes.

Looking at the results, the total number of voters from some of the districts were mind boggling.

Not exactly sure how many eligible voters there are in each district, but some of these numbers should be embarrassing to some of the communities.

According to the results in the paper, the numbers of voters in the May 21 election for each district were: Bemus Point (300), Brocton (218), Cassadaga Valley (299), Chautauqua Lake (382), Clymer (1049), Dunkirk (237), Forestville (161), Falconer (177), Fredonia (503), Frewsburg (218), Jamestown, (434), Panama (164), Pine Valley (323), Ripley (326), Sherman (231), Silver Creek (300), Southwestern (374) and Westfield (549).

In some of those communities, there were unopposed races for members to some school boards, so, in effect the choices some people had was vote for them or not vote, and so I am sure some people chose not to go to the polls at all.

When Sally and I left our home to vote at about 4:30 p.m., we were numbers 29 and 30 respectively in the L to Z sign in book kept by election officials.

After voting, and a very nice conversation with the ladies doing the registrations, we were back at our house at about 4:55 p.m.

So, with travel, conversation, and voting for, or against, the budget of our school district, voting for, or against, a proposition on bus purchases, and voting for (or not voting) for a maximum of two candidates running for the school board, it took us all of about 25 minutes out of our day to show our interest and concern for our school district, the very one that our tax dollars have a hand in funding.

I realize that people in the outlying districts have to travel farther distances to reach the schools where they vote, but aren’t our schools worth the time and interest to motivate ourselves to go out and vote for the people who will make decisions affecting the children of our community, and to have a say in the funding of our schools too?

Shouldn’t all people eligible to vote in these elections take the time to be a part of what may result in a change in the taxes we pay, and determine for ourselves if we think that increase in taxes will be a good thing or not?

Some of the communities in this most recent election, obviously felt their voice needed to be heard. Others, I’m not so sure.

Again, I do not know how many eligible voters there are in each district, but how can you explain Clymer, which may be the smallest K-12 district in Chautauqua County, registering 1,049 voters to their polls, while Jamestown and Dunkirk, Chautauqua County’s two cities, drew 434 and 237, voters, respectively, and throw in the Southwestern School District, a Class B school’s 374 voters, making all three of those schools together total 1,045 voters, four shy of Clymer’s total?

There are many times when people question, voice their opinions (complain?) and blame their schools for many of this country’s, and sometimes the world’s, shortcomings.

“It’s the school’s fault, “I don’t know what they are teaching in those schools today,” and, “Those teachers aren’t teaching anything to my kids,” are some of the lines I heard numerous times in my 33-year career prior to retirement, and, subsequently, in the 11 years since my retirement in my service as a substitute teacher. I could venture a guess that many of the people uttering these words, and asking these questions, might not have made too many trips to their school budget and board of education polling places to be a part of the education in their communities.

The same can be said for political elections within our cities, towns, villages, etc.

Voter turnouts are seldom what they should be, especially if we do have a tendency to ask questions, and voice our opinions, or complain, if you will. My feeling, and I do not mean this to be disrespectful to anyone at all, is that if you don’t vote in any elections to help support the process, you forfeit the right to question or complain.

It becomes disheartened, even sad to a larger degree, to see the increase in apathy regarding involvement in our local schools.

It seems to be that in many, many cases, teachers and school officials hear from the parents, or community citizens, when they want to dictate what should be taught, what should be expected, and what should be allowed without consequence when it comes to what happens in our schools.

Parent involvement and support has dissipated over the years.

Part of it may be the weakening of the family unit over time. Some of it may be the lessening of values in homes and society. We can only guess why there has been this decline in behavior, discipline, and the perceived increase of apathy regarding our schools.

We control the spending purses of our schools. We control who will be on our boards of education and subsequently, will make the decisions that will affect our children in school. We control much of what can, or cannot, what will, or will not, happen in our schools, but only if we get out on school board and school budget election days and vote one way or another, and use our voices to be a part of our educational system.

As for this last local election, some of us should be a little ashamed of ourselves for not getting off of our “good intentions” and being proactive in our communities and our educational institutions.

Lack of participation in elections may be connected to some of the problems we face. We have primaries coming up. We have local, some state, and national, elections coming up. We need to try to be better parts of the solutions. Actions speak louder than words, so let’s not just let our verbal words be heard in our complaining.

Let us speak volumes in our action of getting out and voting. Make a difference the right way.