On March 20, the residents of Hicksville once again stayed away from the polls in droves and failed to pass the school bond referendum. With more than 27,000 registered voters in Hicksville, it is pitiful, but not surprising, that only 8 percent of residents took 10 minutes out of

their day to vote. What is surprising is that in the face of such apathy, most people are shocked that the bond did not pass. When it comes to supporting public education, this community has a dismal record which is only getting worse.

While other Nassau school districts pass yearly budgets with increases of 6, 8 or even 10 percent, Hicksville struggles to pass budgets that barely keep up with the cost of living. Many districts recently have passed bonds to fund repairs, improvements and expansions, and we have failed. Hicksville seems to have the mistaken impression that "public" education means "free" education. It does not. Public education must be supported by the community and that means investing money in the system as other districts do.

Of course, board critics have no problem negatively comparing Hicksville's test scores with other Nassau school districts - but ignore the fact that most of these other districts spend much more for education than Hicksville. And the bond failure and constant lack of community financial support does not stop residents from appearing at board meetings and demanding improvements such as full-day kindergarten, higher teacher salaries, more computers and smaller class sizes. But they then go home and never give a thought to where in the world the money is going to come from to implement these improvements - and make no mistake, all these improvements have a price tag attached. The community constantly makes demands on our school board and administration, but then they tie their hands by not providing the necessary funding.

There are some in this community who will crow over the failure of this bond. They claim that "we need a bond, but not this bond." Just as they oppose every budget, every proposed additional program expenditure and every improvement that costs money. They like to pretend they are pro-education, but clearly their only goal is to reduce their own tax bill. Even when they try to curry favor with certain groups by claiming to support higher teacher salaries, they won't support the additional expense that it would incur, preferring to recommend cutting what they see as educational "frills" - art and music education, sports and after school activities.

If it is paramount to most Hicksville residents to continue to have the lowest tax rate and taxes in Nassau County, that's fine. But then stop complaining about not having the educational improvements other districts have. If you want better schools the residents of this community, especially the taxpaying parents, had better wake up and start fighting for and funding the educational improvements we need before it is too late and too much is lost.

Carol Koegl