On Tuesday, February 10, at 7:30 p.m., a pair of the most important Board of Education Meetings in our times will be kicking off. For Ellenville residents, the meeting will be in the Media Center in the High School. For Pine Bush residents, it will be in the auditorium at Circleville Middle School.

What everyone has to recognize is that our elected school board representatives and the school administrations that we the taxpayers employ are working very hard to cope with an unprecedented situation. School budgets have a momentum of their own, driven by contracts of all shapes and sizes. Just keeping things stable is tricky enough to ensure that school boards aren't forced to go back to the taxpayers with caps in hand for more money.

Throw in the drastic cuts in school aid now demanded by Albany, and you have a budgeting nightmare. From everything we can see, the administrations in both school districts that this paper covers are working their collective tails off to get a handle on this. There are encouraging straws in the wind. Ellenville Central School District's consumption of electricity was down this past November-December from the year before, despite the fact that it was colder by far this time around. At Pine Bush, figures released at the last board meeting showed that the district is ahead of the curve when it comes to efficiency in some areas, like cleaning the huge number of buildings it operates.

But there are tougher battles to come. The teachers and administrators in the schools represent as much as 80 percent of the budget. There are going to have to be cuts. Class sizes will have to grow. The tension within any school district between the consumers of education — the kids and their parents — and the providers — the taxpayers — may grow pretty sharp. And come May, there will be votes on the budgets with major consequences for students next year. Austerity budgets can kill the life in a school, stripping out athletics and activities — all sorts of programs that can help students in pursuit of college placement and future employment. So it's important that everyone who votes has a full understanding of the issues and what's at stake. It's not enough to just have an opinion with no facts to back it up.

If your property tax bill and if your kids' education are important to you, then you should take note of the above date. You should find the time to attend a Board of Education meeting in your district and see your elected representatives at work. That's democracy in action.

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