Price

for voters' shortsightedness to be borne by children

The Special Purpose

Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) is now history, at least

for the moment. We can be assured that it will return, or

something like it, in the near future. The one reality of

living in Fayette County is that growth is going to

occur. A significant number of those voting seemed to

believe that by denying the school district this

financing vehicle, growth will somehow be discouraged

here. It is unfortunate that the schools and the students

in the county must pay to perpetuate this myth.

There are so many issues at

work here that it is extremely difficult to keep one's

focus when writing a summation about the defeat of this

referendum. One can talk about the apathy of the voters

of the county, only 21 percent of whom felt moved to turn

out at the polls for this vote. One can talk of the scare

tactics used by the knee-jerk opponents to all

taxes here who contacted the vulnerable senior citizen

population with the bogus news that this sales tax would

somehow increase their taxes by 40 percent. One can talk

of the fact that, of all the metro counties, Fayette

currently has one of the lowest sales tax rates. One can

mention that, while priding itself on its school system,

citizens here could not accomplish what counties like

Clayton and Newton did, i.e., voting to approve more

money for schools (Newton by a whopping 92 percent to 8

percent).

Ultimately, the price for

this shortsightedness will have to be borne by our

existing schools, some of which are very overcrowded

already.

The reality of the

situation is that, with a growth rate of 1,000 students

per year, our county must be building a school

every year, just to keep up with the growth.

The reality of the

situation is that it takes five years to build a high

school from start of planning to completion.

The reality is that Fayette

County High School is looking at 2200-2300 students

within that five-year time-frame. The reality is that,

while bemoaning the lack of security and the threat of

violence in our schools, the voters chose to pack our

existing schools even further, creating more

overcrowding. The reality is that our campuses will

continue to look like trailer parks.

The school district must

step up and accept the challenges caused by the

"educated" electorate. We must drive home the

point that education is not something on which the people

of Fayette County can automatically depend.

The alternatives are there.

If more preconstructed teaching units are not the answer,

then we must explore other solutions. We must go back to

the voters and sell them on our product. We can no longer

take public support of education for granted as we have

in the past.

We must fight to keep our

excellent school system as a priority for our citizens.

The future of the students in this county is at stake and

we cannot abdicate our responsibilities to them, no

matter what obstacles the public puts before us.

J. Peter Lewin

Fayette County High School teacher

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