Columbus Dispatch...
Stay in bounds
School districts that go too far in pushing levies face pushback  
October  22, 2011 

Anyone who has a child in a school district with a tax levy on the ballot knows the drill: They’re going to hear about the levy from their child’s school and from the district, repeatedly, until Election Day. 

They’ll get email messages reminding them of the levy’s existence on the ballot, the importance of voting and the ease of obtaining an absentee ballot. They’re likely to get information about programs and material things the tax levy will pay for, if approved, and they’ll likely be invited to school-sponsored public meetings to get more details about the levy. 

Some of the information will be printed on fliers that come home with their children; some may be presented on signboards erected in the schoolyard. 

Some folks, especially those who oppose school levies, see such efforts as skirting, if not crossing, the line between information and impermissible campaigning with school resources. 

Levy-campaign critics in some districts are scrutinizing such efforts, such as the $8,500 the Dublin City School District has spent to post informational signs and print fliers about its levy. 

Dublin and other districts can rely on a 1991 Ohio Attorney General’s opinion that said schools can post information signs about levies on their property, as long as the signs don’t say “Vote Yes” and as long as the opposition also is allowed to post signs. 

That’s a key point. 

Allowing schools to communicate with voters about the levy request is essential if voters are to make an informed choice. But, as public resources, school lawns and meeting rooms should be as available to anti-levy groups as they are to pro-levy ones. 

Another safeguard against abuse is the fact that school districts that push their message too heavy-handedly might lose votes. They open themselves to criticism from opponents and could alienate those on the fence about a levy. 

Voters and parents, especially, dislike seeing children used in levy campaigns, whether as PR props or actual labor. Dublin Coffman High School Athletic Director Tony Pusateri sent an email to coaches asking, “please try to get your teams to participate” in a pro-levy envelope-stuffing event. 

Such communications always are shared and seen by people other than the initial list of recipients, and some are bound to be offended when it appears that a line was crossed. That certainty, as much as anything else, should remind school officials to play it safe. 

Read this and other articles at the Columbus Dispatch